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Do not count Ted Galaty of Zumbrota a fan of Minnesota’s new marijuana law.
On Aug. 1, a red-letter day for marijuana advocates will arrive. Adults will be able legally to smoke weed under a new law that is expected to ignite a new home-grown marijuana industry in Minnesota. Users can now possess and publicly transport 2 ounces of cannabis flower and keep up to 2 pounds at home.
Given the near-similarity between the plants, it might be assumed that hemp growers and cannabis advocates would be full blown natural allies. But that’s not true. The marijuana legislation ended up dividing and fracturing those in the hemp industry.
Galaty, owner of 10-acre hemp farms in Zumbrota and Hagerstown, Wisconsin, said he was never opposed to the legalization of recreational marijuana. “More access to the cannabis plant” was something he wanted.
But the ensuing law and its language? That was another matter.
What he came to oppose were the burdens the legislation imposed on the state’s hemp industry — burdens that prompted him to purse hemp opportunities out of state.
Galaty testified before legislative committees more than a dozen times during the last session, urging lawmakers to rid the proposal of its many references to hemp. Lawmakers ended up turning a deaf ear to those and other pleas.
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