Capitol Ideas: ‘Other’ marijuana generates little discussion

DES MOINES - Everyone knows that politics makes strange bedfellows.

A pair of Linn County legislators has - unintentionally - taken that to a new level: They call the same house home.

But not at the same time.

Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, and Rep. Art Staed, D-Cedar Rapids, both call - or have called - 2905 Alleghany Dr. NE home.

Paulsen grew up there from the late 1960s to 1983 when he left to attend the University of Iowa. Sixteen years later, Staed and his wife, Susan, bought the house and reared their children there.

'I wasn't involved in politics back then,” Staed says. 'I didn't know Kraig at that time.”

In fact, it wasn't until 2002 that Paulsen was elected to the Iowa House. Staed was elected in 2006 and has served since being elected again in 2012.

Staed says he and his family have made a lot of changes to the former Paulsen family home.

Their politics may be miles apart, but Staed thinks the shared experience of living in the same house 'helps our rapport.”

Paulsen wishes Staed 'voted a little differently, but I suppose he'd like me to vote a little differently.”

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The debate over expanding access to medical cannabis has been well covered. Less well-known is the other marijuana debate.

That's the legislative proposal for state agencies, regents' universities and community colleges to collaborate on exploring the production of industrial hemp or cannabis sativa L. It is the same plant species as marijuana but has a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of less than three-tenths of 1 percent - far too little to cause a 'high.”

Instead, cannabis sativa L is grown for use in clothes and construction, and its oil and nutritional benefits.

Bills in the Iowa House and Senate went nowhere. Senate Study Bill 1260 by Sen. Joe Seng, D-Davenport, and House File 470 by a bipartisan group of representatives - Democrats John Forbes, Kirsten Running-Marquardt, Helen Miller and Bruce Bearinger, and Republican Bobby Kaufmann - failed to make it through the magical legislative funnel.

Forbes, an Urbandale pharmacist, wasn't surprised. He only hoped to start a conversation this year.

'It puts up their antennas,” he said.

Many people associate it with 'Iowa ditch weed,” a remnant of industrial hemp production during World War II. So he's educating colleagues on the difference between it and its hallucinogenic cousin.

House Bill HF 470 calls for the sort of research program that was given a green light by Congress in the 2014 Farm Bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has offered legislation to legalize its cultivation.

Under Forbes's bill, small plots of hemp, expanding to as much as 500 acres over five years, could be grown at the universities.

'Most of what's available is imported from Canada,” Forbes said. 'We need to grow it here.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislature, 20 states have established industrial hemp programs.