Feds Announce $350K Grant To Develop Method To Distinguish Hemp And Marijuana

The Department of Justice is issuing a different federal agency a grant to help to develop a method of differentiating hemp and marijuana.

After hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, laboratories have been increasingly tasked with determining whether cannabis seized by law enforcement contains THC in excess of 0.3 percent, classifying it as still-illegal marijuana in the eyes of the law.

However, “most forensic laboratories are currently lacking reliable extraction protocols and analytical methods for this purpose,” the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice said in the grant notice published last week.