Year Passed: 2014
Summary: House Bill 105 permits the state Department of Agriculture to grow industrial hemp for the purpose of agricultural or academic research. The new law takes effect on July 1, 2014. The pilot program is in accordance with Section 7606 of the United States Agricultural Act of 2014 (aka the Farm Bill), which authorizes institutions of higher education and state departments of agriculture to conduct industrial hemp research absent federal reclassification of the plant.
Under the program, the Department may engage in the cultivation of cannabis containing no more than three-tenths of one percent THC for research purposes, including the study of whether extracts from the plant may be used as viable therapeutic agents. Separate provisions in the measure also seek to exempt qualified patients with intractable epilepsy from state prosecution if they possession extracted oils containing 15 percent or more of the nonpsychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol. The measure provides no immediate source for the extracts, which are presently available in a handful of legal medical cannabis states, such as Colorado and California.
Statute: Utah Code Ann. § 4-41-103 (2014)