Within each species there is great genetic diversity and through a careful breeding program, particular traits and chemotypes can be selected from any breeding stock of Cannabis. E.g., hemp like offspring can be selected from drug strains over several generations and vice versa. Although is possible to look for particular expressed genes which control the production of Cannabinoids from their chemical precursors, it is not viable to test a hemp field in this manner. Rather like other industrial countries which have legal hemp production, a maximum THC content limit may be tested and enforced at lower expense.

You are right that the introduction of hemp can reduce the genetic qualities of nearby drug strains. However, to the illicit cultivator there is a much more pressing concern with the introduction of stray hemp pollen, namely that it will fertilize female drug plants and reduce the quantity and quality of the processed flowering tops which can be harvested. Once a female Cannabis plant is fertilized it reduces the energy spent on the creation of more and bigger bud structures and the conversion of precursors into Cannabinoids and instead expends energy on seed formation. Bud that has been seeded commands less on the market than sensemilla. This effect is immediate and doesn’t depend on one or several generations to affect the quality and potency of drug strains illicitly cultivated.

I thank you for bringing the issue of hemp to the Lt. Governor. Hopefully, the economic and environmental benefits of hemp will prove persuasive over the misguided fears of the racist drug war. I look forward to the day when legal Cannabis is once again a top crop in Kentucky and across the country.