>> We can make a biodegradable water bottle that is made from hemp.

That's amazing.

Think of how that can change the world.

>> Farmers are gonna be able to grow industrial hemp for building material purposes.

We're gonna be able to take those and turn those into non-toxic, highly sustainable building materials.

>> As a fiber for making T-shirts and clothing.

It's stronger than cotton.

Gets softer with continued use or washing.

>> When you take a CBD product, it helps to bring that system back in balance, and that's the same with kids with ADD, or ADHD, or bipolar.

>> There's just no end to how big hemp could be if more people got on board with it that have the financial power and the business know-how to make these things happen.

>> Hemp has proven to be one of the most useful, and at times, misunderstood plants in agricultural history.

So, let's start by learning some unique characteristics of hemp.

It grows incredibly fast from seed to cultivation in 3 to 4 months.

Hemp actually enhances the soil it's planted in because it pulls out the harmful chemicals in addition to the nutrients.

And it's been called nature's purifier because it captures carbon dioxide from the air more effectively than any other commercial crop or forest.

Hemp is a variety of the cannabis sativa family, which also includes marijuana.

They're essentially the same species and look and smell very similar.

Thus, the confusion.

The difference is that marijuana has a psychoactive, or mind altering, compound called THC.

In some plants as much as 25%.

Hemp's THC levels are naturally much less, and is now regulated on the federal level at less than .3%.

Hemp has something called CBD that can be extracted from the plant.

Although it doesn't have those mind altering marijuana effects, CBD oils have been documented to help with seizures, pain, anxiety relief, and the treatment of some other diseases.

So, as of this moment, you are now more of an expert on cannabis comparison than most of the general public.

There is considerable confusion and many people unfortunately mistake the two as the same.

CBD from hemp is legal in a majority of states and currently is its most popular harvested product, but the plant can be used for a variety of other uses, many of which will be examined in this program such as paper, biodegradable packaging, textiles, construction materials, and various food products.

It's part of hemp's long history serving mankind.

Hemp is one of our oldest harvested plants dating back to the Neolithic age in China where its fibers were found on pottery, and it was used to make clothes, rope, and paper.

Hemp was used in medieval Europe as a filling soup and pies.

It was mainly grown for its fibers, which were used for ropes on ships, including those of Christopher Columbus as he made his way to America.

The Puritans planted hemp in New England in the mid-1600s and it became a cash crop used in fabrics and rope.

A number of our founding fathers grew hemp on their farms, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson.

In 1937, hemp was included in the marijuana tax act which levied a significant tax on anyone who sold it, but the Department of Agriculture lifted the tax during World War II as hemp was needed desperately to make uniforms, canvas, and ropes for ships.

>> American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries.

In 1942, patriotic farmers of the government's request planted 36000 acres of seed hemp, an increase of several thousand percent.

The goal for 1943 is 50000 acres of seed hemp.

>> When the war ended, so did the demand for domestic hemp, and farmers quickly turned to other crops.

By the late 1950s, only a few large hemp producing farms existed.

The federal government passed the controlled substances act in 1970, and it regulated all cannabis, including industrial hemp.

It wasn't until the early 2000's when limited amounts of hemp was allowed to be imported.

The 2018 Farm Bill finally removed hemp from the controlled substances act, making it legal for farmers to grow, process, and sell hemp.

Colorado is one of a number of states already well down that road, taking advantage of an earlier bill that allowed pilot programs for hemp research, such as the one taking place at Colorado State University.

>> It is a very healthy product because it is an oilseed similar to canola or sunflower, and it also has a very significant level of protein.

>> The 2018 Farm Bill literally opened the hemp floodgates for the rapid production of CBD related products and the many other uses for hemp.

Hemp helped refuel what was already a Colorado green rush.

>> The Department of Agriculture is helping lead an initiative called the CHAMP Initiative, the Colorado Hemp Advancement and Management Plan.

We convened about a dozen state agencies, the governor's office, both tribes, institutions of higher education, and about 175 stakeholders from across the supply chain.

>> Greenberg was visiting one of those stakeholders on this day.

Isabel farms in Boulder County.

>> We have 40,000 sq.

ft. of greenhouse space and little bit over 35 acres of outdoor production area.

>> This hemp producer is researching and essentially tweaking the evolution of industrial hemp plants.

She was touring the facility to get a better understanding of the challenges of developing what for many is a new and burgeoning crop.

>> Everything from how do we help manage education around water rights, to equity and access to capital, to our soil management, to our marketing opportunities with oil, with fiber, and beyond.

>> Greenberg met with one of Colorado's top hemp researchers, Dr. Robert Sievers, who says American scientists are playing catch-up due to hemp's long-standing status as a controlled substance.

>> So, we've had trouble getting permission in earlier years to do the studies that are being done in Israel, and are being done in Europe, and in other places of the world because their laws were more lenient and legalization came earlier, and faster, and more intensely there than it did here.

>> The former University of Colorado Regent and longtime chemistry researcher is known for his work with the Gates Foundation developing inhalable vaccine delivery for use in developing countries.

These days, his team's focus is on hemp and CBD's medicinal capabilities.

>> I think there's a lot of potential.

There already have been some FDA approved drugs for the treatment of epilepsy.

We are interested in things like bipolar disorder or for use in treatment to help people get off opioids.

Can CBD and other cannabinoids be used to help people avoid those harder drugs?

>> Those medical applications are also being researched for animals.

At Colorado State's renowned Veterinary Teaching Hospital, dogs with epilepsy were given CBDs, proving it can reduce epileptic seizures.

>> Canid epilepsy is a devastating disease.

If you have ever met a client, or a pet owner, or seen, or have yourself a dog with epilepsy, it's horrible.

The seizures are violent, and they're oftentimes destructive, they're incredibly challenging in an emotional sense to watch.

So, a really exciting finding, I think, from the original study is that there was a correlation, a significant correlation between that degree of seizure activity reduction and the level of CBD in the dog's blood.

So, the higher the CBD in the dog's bloodstream, the greater seizure reduction we achieved.

>> CBDs are also used to treat dogs for other issues such as pain and anxiety.

Those are precisely the concerns Caitlin Van Buren had for her two dogs, now both taking CBD oil.

>> I have a dog that has hip problems, which is Chevelle.

So, she could benefit from it.

And nova, my little scaredy-cat is what we call her.

She has anxiety.

So, it ended up working great for both of them.

She's about six years old now, and being a German Shepherd, she has a lot of hip problems.

She couldn't really lift her leg all the way back without going, "Oh, she's kind of in pain."

The CBD helped the most.

We can just see she acted more puppy like than what she had been for a while.

She'd just been laying around, not really doing anything.

For Nova, the little things that used to terrify her were only kind of sort of bothering her.

Even going to the vet, things that normal dogs kind of are okay with, where she would just be terrified, she could do without shaking and crying.

>> Results like this are what is pushing scientists, like those at New West Genetics, to develop better versions of hemp.

>> People are going to get educated about the value and how much more nutritional, especially that green is.

You're gonna see it in animal feed regularly.

It's gonna improve the health of our animals as well as us, we who consume them.

We take for granted in Colorado, you know, seeing it, but in other states, you can walk in and people don't know what it is still.

So, you're gonna see that level out in the industry, just continue to grow exponentially.

>> These are nice, big, plump, mature seeds.

They turn a brownish color.

They're relatively high in protein and oil content.

The seed has been made into products that are protein supplements.

The source of fiber is from the stem.

So, it's very durable, and so it has a lot of characteristics that make it strong for use in fiber production.

>> Stories of minor medical miracles and nutritional value have put hemp, and specifically CBDs, into the headlines, but proponents of the plant say we may be doing so at the risk of ignoring the most important parts of the plant.

Forget the seeds and grains, they say.

Focus on the benefits from the stock and fibers.

Why?

How about starting with this little plastic container problem we have here on our planet.

>> Hemp grows easy, hemp grows everywhere, and if we can get those industrial practices online, meaning that we have biomass available to be made into paper, and plastic, and anything plastic can make, hemp can make.

I think that is where the industry needs to go.

>> It's a super crop, it's a super fiber, it's a super ingredient, and it can be very key in helping fight climate change.

Not only from an agricultural standpoint growing organically and regeneratively, but the products that it makes can really have an environmental impact as far as offsetting other more toxic ingredients such as petroleum ingredients, or cotton, or timber ingredients.

>> Let's look at that plastic and packaging thing.

Sana Packaging of Wheat Ridge, Colorado provides hemp material containers for various cannabis products.

They established the company based on a pretty simple premise.

>> You know, we really started it as disgruntled cannabis consumers who saw the amount of single-use packaging that was being created by this new industry, and so we thought we could do something better about it.

You have all this byproduct material.

The parts of the plant that we're using to make our products are largely not used in other parts of the industry.

We use the stock.

So, it's just one of those other parts of the plants.

We say, "Hey, there's a use for it.

We know we need packaging.

How can we start making this more efficient and more widespread?"

>> Sana is finding solid support for packaging in the cannabis industry, but the economics aren't there yet to compete with traditional packaging.

There's simply not enough supply of hemp packaging available to match the current price point of its competitors, but Sana is happy to be a future solution.

>> Cosmetics industry, or beverage industry, or food industry might say, "Okay, we've seen this work in this industry.

Now we can take and transfer it over."

So, we help to be a proving ground for that.

>> How about clothing?

Hemp is certainly becoming more popular in today's fashion world.

Patagonia is the largest clothing manufacturer listing hemp choices in its catalogs.

An international company called 8000Kicks is shipping shoes and hemp accessories across the world.

>> My name is Bernardo Carreira.

I am the CEO of 8000Kicks, the world's first waterproof hemp shoes.

It has antibacterial properties, which many other fibers don't.

So, we were like, "Okay, this is actually way better than many other fibers, many of the natural fibers that exist in the market, and is a game changer not only for climate, but also for the users."

>> And there's a T-shirt company based in Boulder Colorado called Onno.

The owner says sales are trending up for a couple of reasons including comfort.

>> It seems to me the popularity just going to continue to grow as people discover and wear.

It feels great to wear, but equally as important is how great of a crop it is from an environmental standpoint.

>> Kanefield says his customers are interested in purchasing products that are healthy for the planet.

>> I would imagine that as more and more carbon ends in the atmosphere, people are thinking more and more about sustainability as it relates to their clothing.

>> I think that it has grown, but we are still in our infancy as an industry.

>> Morris Beegle is the president of WAFBA, We Are For Better Alternatives, an umbrella organization that includes a hemp paper company, hemp clothes, and merchandise, hemp guitars and amps, and they are the organizers of the largest hemp conferences in the country.

>> Let your political representatives know you support hemp, that you support cannabis, and that everybody should be able to participate.

>> Beegle is very passionate about hemp's potential to impact the world.

Today, virtually all paper is created with wood pulp, and it's our deforestation issue that we've got going on.

We don't need to be chopping down forests to make paper products, to make toilet paper, to make paper towels, to make clean wipes and that sort of thing.

When we can grow something in 90 to 120 days that has a positive impact on the soil rather than chopping down our forest that then create this void of being able to sequester carbon.

>> Another key piece of hemp's future lies in building construction.

This Ketchum, Idaho home looks like many other 2700 square-foot homes in the neighborhood, but if these walls could talk, they would tell you they're filled with industrial hemp.

>> This is hemp on the exterior.

You can see the depth of the wall.

It finished out at about 12 1/2 inches, which gives us that R2075 is what it was rated at.

>> Lake Eagle built this home for his own family about 10 years ago and wanted to use energy-efficient building materials that can be recycled or naturally composted, such as hemp, but he was a little ahead of his time.

>> Took us nine months to get approved from our local city officials.

They had never seen it before, and at that time, hemp was still something people smoked.

We had a lot of people ask if they can smoke our house.

Things like that.

>> The approval of hemp for Blake's construction eventually came and the satisfaction of doing something he believes is a better choice for his family and the environment.

>> I wish to see more of them.

I love the fact that we're using something that can be recycled.

The waste stream that we're gonna see in the future is gonna be a little bit interesting where these homes are going when people start remodeling and making it theirs when they buy a new home.

>> It turns out that hemp construction materials are a hit in the Sun Valley, Idaho area.

It's the home to Hempitecture, a company specializing in a material called hempcrete.

>> This has become a bit of hotspot, a place where people come to learn how to build and work with hempcrete.

People travel from across the world to work with us, to come see the techniques that we're using here, and that's what our contractor training program is all about.

>> This particular workshop features trade school students and community activists from the Los Angeles area who are interested in many aspects of the potential of hemp, including home construction.

They practice mixing and assembling walls of hempcrete and the installation of a user-friendly hemp wall insulation product.

>> You'll notice that I'm taking my gloves off.

This is just about the only insulation that we can touch and handle.

It's not to make us itchy, irritate our skin.

It's non-toxic.

Feel this.

Super soft.

So, we'll put this right on the bottom, tuck the corner in, then we can reach up here and just gently press this in.

>> This interests me because in California, we have a lot of wildfires, and we have a lot of termites, a lot of mold going on in people's home, and a lot of people don't know what's getting them sick, and in reality, it's what we're living in.

All of the material that's being used to construct homes, it's really toxic.

>> Hemp is considered a green building product because of its limited impact on the environment, and there are some interesting hemp wood products being developed, such as flooring, paneling, and furniture.

In Colorado, Left Hand Hemp is spreading the word about the benefits of building and designing with hemp in the structure.

>> The acoustics of hempcrete are amazing, so I would like to see a lot of sound studios and music studios get build with hemp because you don't need all the styrofoam.

The benefits that people would see from building with hempcrete or any sort of sustainable material are just-- you actually have to see it to believe because if you tell people, they're like, "Yeah, okay.

I'm just gonna go with fiberglass."

It's like, "Okay."

Of course, that's why we do it.

That's the way it's been done for maybe 50 years, or 60, 70 years, but there are much better ways to do it.

Sustainability for me is like-- That's the exciting part of the whole picture.

>> Part of hemp's success in Colorado will be based on the support it's received in the state, not only from producers and entrepreneurs, but from the policymakers.

>> Having now Gov.

Polis, who was Congressman Polis, in our district for the last 10 years has been very helpful as well because he's been very supportive of the hemp industry and the overall cannabis industry.

I think having a leader like that, that trickles down through all aspects of government.

>> Colorado has provided leadership nationally in developing hemp opportunities that's acknowledged as far away as states such as Hawaii, where the laws are frankly much murkier.

CBDs are being sold here in multiple locations, but the state is technically still recognizing the federal stance of hemp as a controlled substance.

Store owners here look to Colorado for advice.

>> Colorado has a head start for the fact that the information is there for them to know.

Colorado is definitely opening the door and has a wealth of knowledge there.

>> It's frustrating for sellers and proponents in other states following Colorado's lead as they sincerely believe in the value of hemp in general, and CBDs in particular.

>> Balance, right?

You wanna keep those cannabinoids in there ten to twelve hours.

>> When they realize this is natural, you're not on a drug, this is not synthesized, this isn't something that you should shamed for, they walk out feeling much better about their choices in life.

>> So, what is the future of hemp?

It's the million, no, actually, the billion-dollar question.

Most everyone we talk to believes there is great world changing potential, but they also see considerable hurdles and a number of growing pains.

Let's look at a few of those challenges.

Perhaps tops on that list is how to encourage and protect small the hemp farmers who will be a key part of the supply chain.

>> We need more ideas.

We need more utilization for the hemp to save these farmers and to create different opportunities in the industry because there's already more CBD here in America than people are even taking at this point in time.

>> Cline is a business consultant and helps hemp growers with insurance and financial options.

He recognizes the difficulty farmers have with what is essentially a new product and process for them, and what part they play everyone else down the line.

>> With anyone who is going to go make a product, whether that be packaging, shoes, shirts, whatever it may be, you have to have a stable supply chain.

You gotta know what the price of your inputs are and you have to know when the inputs are coming.

So, without that, it become incredibly difficult to build a business model with all those unknowns.

>> We have a lot of resources at the Department of Agriculture for folks interested in in growing hemp.

We offer a certified seed program, which is a big deal across the country.

Here in Colorado, we're at the leading edge of that.

We also have an incredible team of experts who are out in the field doing inspections.

We have our lab doing our inspections in a laboratory.

>> Another serious challenge for hemp success is making sure the consumers both understand the product and have a good experience purchasing it.

>> We've got a 600 and a 1200 mg. >> The sellers of CBDs are spending a considerable amount of time educating their customers.

>> Hemp pulls directly from the soil, and whatever is in the soil is going to be in your plant, so you have to be very, very careful about where you source your CBD medicine because of that.

>> If you walk into a store, the first thing you should ask is let me see your certificate of analysis.

I want to make sure you've lab tested.

Show me what the profile, the CBD components are.

Do you have numbers on the heavy metals that are in there?

We test for microbials, herbicides, pesticides.

Those all should be zero or near zero.

>> When you see products, CBD products, in a gas station, they're very cheap.

You just-- People have to do their research and to, "What's actually in that product?"

>> If customers have good experiences, if farmers are successful, if the hemp plant is utilized for all of its capabilities and potential, well, that's a lot of ifs, but if it does happen in Colorado, >> Jobs, jobs, jobs, meaning people running the processing equipment, people running the packaging equipment, then you've got increased rail traffic for shipping.

There's no end to how big hemp could be if more people got on board with it that have the financial power and the business know-how to make these things happen.

>> The Colorado green rush is on.

There was certainly hope for hemp.

Where it goes from here remains to be seen.

Boom or bust?

>> It's all gonna take time, and I think if we stay committed to the cause and keep the environment first, this hemp will move a lot faster.

>> I feel like they're still an education piece with hemp.

People are smart and they're doing the research.

I feel like consumers nowadays are very educated.

>> We are proud to offer hemp grown in Colorado, processed in Colorado, sent from Colorado.

>> You're gonna see an explosion in the marketplace.

In your Krogers, you're already seeing CBD products.

In your Costo you see it, but it's gonna become really normalized.

>> I would say that we're number one in the country, that we are the leaders in the hemp industry.

>> Way more questions right now than answers, but we're really excited to be at the helm of figuring out what those answers will be.