One member of the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Commission has charged the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) with purposefully delaying hemp seed shipments to the state.
“It’s clear to me. They’re (the DEA) just trying to delay it. If (the DEA) said yes today, we’re not looking at getting (the seed) here in time to plant. We should be planting right now,” Commissioner Fen Rascoe told Mountain Express.
IHC is the state agency assigned to develop North Carolina’s industrial hemp pilot program. As in many states, however, the Commission has been hampered by strict DEA interpretations of hemp’s legality – which has caused import problems for the last several years.