Year Passed: 2016
Summary: House Bill 443 permits the Department of Agriculture to authorize institutions of higher education to cultivate industrial hemp for academic research purposes. Members of the Senate voted 45 to zero in favor of the bill. Also establishes a license allowing individuals to plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, or buy industrial hemp in Maryland. The law took effect October 1st, 2016.
Separate legislation enacted in 2018, HB 698, further expands the law to explicitly permit hemp grown under the program to be “sold, distributed, transported, marketed, or processed in the state or outside the state.”
Statute: MD. CODE ANN. §14-101 (2016)