This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, January 29th, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Hemp is legal.

CBD is legal, and at least federally, tiny amounts of THC are legal in hemp products.

With that as the backdrop, what's the best way to end the federal prohibition on the cannabis plant more broadly?

Former journalist Jim Higdon is author of the Cornbread Mafia

and co-founder of Cornbread Hemp.

He says the devil's in details when it comes to regulation,

but there is a way to end cannabis prohibition without needless federal regulation.

You own a company, you co-own a company that produces CBD products.

So what was the market opportunity that was created for you

to be able to have this business? Sure, so, right, I'm the co-founder and co-owner of Corn Bread Hemp.

We make USDA certified CBD products here in Kentucky. What gave us the opportunity to start this business is the

farm bill changing the definition of hemp to only be any cannabis plant with a THC level of below 0.3%.

So that was a radical change in definition and that brought out a whole section of the cannabis plant out of the

Controlled Substances Act jurisdiction and put it under the control of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,

legalizing the hemp plant once again. And this THC level thing becomes very important because 0.3% is in the sub-basement of THC levels, but it's not nothing.

And that 0.3% THC threshold really opened the door for a

canabenoid hemp production like we use for our CBD products at cornbread

hemp. Never really happened before. I was for our CBD products at Corn Bread Hemp.

Never really happened before.

I was as a cannabis journalist and cannabis book author

...