When the RI General Assembly passed a law prohibiting smoking in public places, it made our restaurants and bars healthier places for their patrons and employees. Sure was a step in the right direction, but what was not a widely publicized fact after the law passed was that the following year, organizations like Save the Bay and Keep America Beautiful noticed a distinct uptick in the amount of cigarette butts cleaned up from our beaches and waterways. As it happens, when you make people smoke outside, they tend to throw their cigarette butts on the ground.

Anyone with a basic understanding of, well, life in general, is familiar with unintended consequences. They are the unforeseen hiccups and downright disasters that accompany all decisions made. Most of the time, they are quite bad, but sometimes they can be good. The law of unintended consequences certainly rears it’s head when laws get passed without adequate scrutiny, but there is a very serious positive aspect to legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana use that no one has mentioned in the debate.

This law could help Rhode Island’s farming community. I’m not suggesting that all of Rhode Island’s farmers start growing high-grade Wacky Tobaccy; what I am suggesting is that this law opens the door for industrial hemp production.

What if RI’s farmers could legally plant, as a cover crop or for use in crop rotation and soil remediation, a plant that grows tall and quickly – which prevents the need for herbicides – and that has an abundance of uses and  high market value? How about a plant that can break disease cycles and blights in other plants? I’d imagine that most farmers would jump at the chance.

Imagine the potential economic impacts to our all-but-dead manufacturing sector if we could provide a local, sustainable raw material for use in creating ultra-durable cloths and yarns. Industrial hemp is a fast growing plant whose oil can be used in biofuel production and as a feedstock for plastics. It is well known that acre-for-acre, industrial hemp vastly outperforms timber in paper production.

Hemp has a place in the building trades as well. It’s fibers can be used to make insulation, pressed into fiberboard, and even used as an additive in concrete to make it lighter, stronger, and lessen the environmental impact of concrete production.

Hemp could also play a part in reclaiming contaminated lands. Though the practice is still in it’s infancy, hemp shows good potential as a phytoremediator. In fact, hemp was and has been used to remediate contamination of fly ash, sewage sludge, and heavy metals. It was even used to remediate radioactive soil in and around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The only thing stopping industrial hemp production in the United States is the fact that drug laws make no distinction between won’t-get-you-high-but-has-a-bajillion-other-benefits hemp, and the other I’m-not-as-think-as-you-stoned-I am strains of the cannabis plant. I think it’s time to make that distinction.

Throwing hemp into the same drug schedule as its more potent cousins is like saying there is no difference between a bottle of water and a fine Belgian tripel. One of them is extremely useful, can be consumed, and won’t degrade your faculties. The other has been known to throw even the most seasoned beer drinker for a loop after just one glass. The beer nerd in me finds this insulting.

(Note: As per federal law, it is currently LEGAL to grow industrial hemp in the U.S. You just need a permit from the DEA. Good luck with that.)

Connecticut needs Rhode Island’s help. And by helping our neighbors in the nutmeg state, we would also be helping our own economy and creating a healthier, more sustainable food supply for Americans everywhere.

Connecticut recently made big national news for passing the first ever law requiring Frankenfoods be labelled as such. For foodies, this is the most critical political battle being fought between slow, local family farmers and genetically engineered, corporate-controlled agriculture.

But Connecticut’s landmark labeling law only takes affect after four other states pass a similar law. And at least one of them has to share a border. That means it’s up to us, Massachusetts or New York to make this happen.

Let’s have Rhode Island be the next state to pass this important legislation.

Rep. Ray Hull of Providence has introduced this bill. The bill is co-signed by progressive Rep. Art Handy of Cranston, Republican Antony Giarrusso of East Greenwich, conservative Democrat Karen MacBeth of Cumberland and moderate Democrat Joe Scherkachi of Warwick. That’s a pretty much touches the entire RI political spectrum.

Because of our compact size and wealth of great restaurants and innovative young family farmers, this is an obvious area of our economy that Rhode Island should be working hard to grow. High-quality, local food is one of most attractive reasons to come to the Ocean State over, say, Maine, which passed a GMO labeling bill yesterday similar to Connecticut’s. Not to mention that farmers won’t ditch us just because another state offers them a better tax deal.

For more on how economically important sustainable agriculture is for Rhode Island, watch Ted Nesi’s excellent Executive Suite focusing on farmers’ markets and the amazing growth in small agriculture.