The paranoia surrounding industrial hemp goes back
probably 100 years.
They demonised it with the marijuana line
and all of a sudden the society began to break up.
And once you get a lack of support for something
the paranoia can take over.
I don't know whether there's an understanding
of industrial hemp at all.
Hemp's been around forever and it's inevitable that it will come back.
It's only for a short period that hemp hasn't really been used by man.
My name is Phil Warner.
I've been involved in the hemp industry for the last 17 years.
I got into this business because
I was looking for new crops that would regenerate
jobs in the bush.
Hemp technically has a significant amount of attributes
for manufacturing in all forms.
Whether it's for food, fibre or cellulose
or even for medicine.
It's throughout the automotive industry, people don't know it.
Anybody who's driving a Merc or a Volvo, most of the European cars
and some American cars
has hemp in their cars.
We would grow anywhere upwards of 500 hectares a year.
It is a highly misunderstood plant.
And the problem is that no one really, on the official level
wants to know.
The Australian hemp industry is tiny.
Many within the industry point to one regulation holding it back.
Earlier this year, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand
rejected an application to allow low THC hemp foods to be sold within Australia.
The main factor being concerns held by law enforcement agencies.
The sticker says that you agree to purchase the product
only if you're going to use it for external use only.
Or in a country where it's legal.
And as you can see from this map on here
it's only Australia and New Zealand that are marked as the countries where it's not legal in the world.
here in Bangalow.
The only difference between the food products that we export
and the products we sell in Australia and New Zealand
is the sticker on the front and the back of the packs.
Apart from that, they're all 100% certified organic food-grade materials.
What people do in their private homes in their private lives
is private with them, of course.
Currently, hemp foods are sold and consumed in Canada, USA, UK and Europe...
Well, everywhere except Australia.
Now I have half a cup of hemp and I'm just going to sprinkle that right in.
Combine your hemp protein powder with some juicy sweet raisins.
The most common misconception is simply that they think cannabis is a drug, or industrial hemp is a drug.
All strains of hemp contain THC, but then wool also contains cyanide.
Everything that we deal with in the plant world does have an element of something
that in concentrated form will actually affect you in an adverse way.
The THC in these sort of plants, you know you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telegraph pole
to even get anywhere near any effect.
The problem that the police have with allowing hemp as a food
is the roadside drug testing.
The concern being that if they test positive and they've only been having hemp as a food
they will have a defense in court against their consequences.
It stands to reason that the same sort of issues would exist in England or France or Canada.
And they don't seem to have a problem with it.
We know that those tests can show very much the difference between taking drug cannabis
and taking industrial hemp as a food, which can't get you high in any shape or form.
It's easier for the police to say a blanket no to this
rather than to actually address the concerns with science and factual opinion.
The Feed contacted police agencies across the country, but no one was willing to come on camera
or give a statement.
From the police perspective
they're saying well, we don't know how to control it.
Well, they don't have to, their job is to enforce the law
not control it.
At the street level, the police understand there is really no value in a plant like this, at all in the drug industry.
I'm Phil Reader, I'm an industrial hemp grower on a farm here in the North Midlands of Tasmania.
Bishopsbourne is a generally undulating country
with a mixed range of soils which enable us to do a range of different things.
Farmers are looking for another option.
We've been limited on options of crops to grow that are profitable.
The biggest things that have been holding the industry back is that it's classed as a drug.
So it comes under the Misuse of Drugs Act
and also the Poisons Act.
It must be remembered that there's over 2000 different varieties of cannabis sativa.
Over 90% of those are low THC.
A lot has been tied up and drawn into parallel with the poppy industry
which everybody is aware is a drug crop.
Whereas we are growing a crop which is not a drug crop
which doesn't need the same sort of restrictions put on it.
Tasmania grows around 50% of the world's medicinal opium poppies.
It's an industry worth an estimated $90 million to Tasmanian farmers.
If restrictions were eased on growing hemp, it could potentially become
a profitable industry.
There you are, there's all that wonderful seed.
It's basically what this product is all about.
From all the tests we've done, the seed coming from Tasmania is of a higher quality
than that of the mainland.
Here is a state, Tasmania, it's a beautiful place, it really is.
It's suffering.
Tasmania currently has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country.
Tasmania Deputy Premier and Minister for Primary Industries, Jeremy Rockliff, is one politician
gunning for the hemp industry.
The opium poppy has been really a key component of cropping production in the last 40 years in particular.
It remains to be seen whether hemp will be the next poppy industry.
Industrial hemp as a food or seed would be a wonderful opportunity for Tasmania to lead Australia.
And also from an export perspective because of its clean green image.
Oh definitely.
Quinoa is a great product as well
but hemp fills a whole other area of nutritional need that we're not getting as well.
They contain Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids.
And it's the only naturally balanced plant-based source of that in the whole world.
Of course we can't tell people about the health benefits in Australia and New Zealand
because of health claims and the fact it's not even legal as a food itself.
But around the world, that's widely known and widely used.
Lots of difference between hemp seeds and poppy seeds in fact.
Poppy seeds come from the opium poppy, and do contain opiates.
And are grown legally in Australia, and are found on poppy seed bagels that children can buy.
It's very hard to define where the roadblocks are holding us up specifically.
All the facts are there, the science is there.
The decisions aren't being made on science or logic.
The senior people making the decisions are not prepared to stand up and be counted and say yes.
Why does Australia have to be any different from the rest of the world?
The Feed contacted the Assistant Minister for Health, Fiona Nash, and in a statement she said:
The Health Department is currently working with other ministries to address concerns
around low THC hemp.
To allay any concerns that people have, I think it just requires a better understanding.
The Commonwealth recognises the benefits, it's a matter of how we all work together to get there.
All we're doing in Australia is actually not missing the boat, we're trying to sink our own boat.
I think it's mostly just ignorance and reluctance to bite the bullet. I mean, it will happen.
The fact is that this is inevitable.