Best of Cato Daily Podcast: A Realistic, Quick Path to Ending Cannabis Prohibition?
Cato Daily Podcast
Cato Institute
4.6 • 949 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Caleb O. Brown hosted the Cato Daily Podcast for nearly 18 years, producing well over 4000 episodes. He has gone on to head Kentucky’s Bluegrass Institute. This is one among the best episodes produced in his tenure, selected by the host and listeners.
What’s the best path forward to end cannabis prohibition without loading it up with needless federal regulation? Jim Higdon is the co-founder of Cornbread Hemp and an advocate for an end to cannabis prohibition. He says the Farm Bill is the key.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is longtime Cato Daily podcast host, Caleb Brown. After thousands of episodes over nearly 18 years, I've moved on from the Cater Daily podcast, but in the interim, I, along with some of you, have selected some favorites. |
| 0:12.8 | I hope they resonate with our current moment and continue to spark the desire to defend liberty. Thank you for listening. |
| 0:21.2 | This is the Cato Daily podcast for Friday, January 29th, 2021. I'm Caleb Brown. Hemp is legal. |
| 0:27.8 | CBD is legal. And at least federally, tiny amounts of THC are legal in hemp products. With that as the backdrop, |
| 0:36.3 | what's the best way to end the federal prohibition |
| 0:39.1 | on the cannabis plant more broadly? Former journalist Jim Higden is author of the cornbread |
| 0:44.2 | mafia and co-founder of cornbread hemp. He says, the devil's in details when it comes to regulation, |
| 0:50.2 | but there is a way to end cannabis prohibition without needless federal regulation. |
| 0:55.7 | You own a company, you co-own a company that produces CBD products. |
| 1:02.0 | So what was the market opportunity that was created for you to be able to have this business. |
| 1:11.7 | Sure. |
| 1:12.6 | So, right, I'm the co-founder and co-owner of cornbread hemp. |
| 1:16.4 | We make USDA certified CBD products here in Kentucky. |
| 1:21.8 | What gave us the opportunity to start this business is the farm bill changing the definition of hemp to only be |
| 1:31.8 | any cannabis plant with a THC level of below 0.3%. So that was a radical change in definition, |
| 1:43.4 | 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. |
| 1:59.1 | And this T. This T.C. level thing becomes very important because 0.3% is in the sub-basement of TAC |
| 2:07.2 | levels, but it's not nothing. |
| 2:09.5 | And that 0.3% THC threshold really opened the door for cannabinoid hemp production like we use for our CBD products at cornbread hemp. |
| 2:22.3 | Never really happened before. |
| 2:23.9 | I was as a cannabis journalist and cannabis book author in the space in 2013, 2014, when the first farm bill passed, I was on the front lines watching all this happened, or I guess in the bleacher seats. |
| 2:35.9 | No one, or at least I, had no concept of cannabinoid hemp production, CBD oil as a market. |
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