Local law enforcement could be assisting ODA with hemp inspections

Of agriculture on hemp inspections.

Newswatch 12's tyler ridgle looked into the bill jackson county commissioners have been discussing.

Tyler how far are jackson county commissioners into this discussion?

Well brian it could still be quite a bit of time until we see this go into effect -- if it does get passed but one jackson county commissioner tells me it was a unanimous decision to move forward with this bill that they plan to take to legislation.

Vo: house bill 2296 has been the topic of discussion for jackson county commissioners and they plan on taking a letter in support of the bill to legislatures.

Sot: house bill 2296 which allows local law enforcement to enter in with an interagency agreement with the oregon department of agriculture.

Vo: the oda regulates industrial hemp product -- and inspection of premises and facilities would typically be done by the department of agriculture -- but with this bill -- jackson county sheriffs could carry out hemp field inspections.

Sot: oda is understaffed to do this themselves is the jackson county sheriffs department equipped to do this?

Sot: well we have a team that is state funded through grant mostly, not all the way but mostly state funded through marijuana tax revenues and so they would be doing the line share of this stuff and like i say be coordinating with the oda.

Vo: one factor that is pushing this initiative is the worry of marijuana being grown illegally on hemp farms. dyer was on the marijuana advisory committee and sickler is currently apart of it and says it's hard for even experts to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana plants.

Sot: there's a lot of hemp issues that come to this committee and this was actually a reccomendation by that committee.

Sot: there's quite a bit of manipulation or fraud going on meaning people are growing marijuana under oda licensing and this shipping it across state lines.

Vo: sickler says when inspections are carried out they'll also be looking for hot hemp.

Sot: and what exactly do these inspections entail but are they taking samples from hemp growers?

Sot: yeah, my understanding is that there's going to be going to be serveal samples taken throughout the grow area or the crop area and tested randomly within the plot of land and then if they're below the threshold they're considered hemp and if they're above it could be construed as marijuana or hot hemp.

Vo: he explains hot hemp is a mistake made by inexperienced farmers that gets thrown out by the oda.

Now this bill still has to go through a work session to be voted on and as far as commissioners know there is no fiscal impact if it was to be passed.

But there are already a series of laws related to industrial hemp