Legal Hemp Sending U.S. Drug Busts Up in Smoke

As more states like New Mexico legalize the sale of  hemp-based products, police say they are finding it harder to get convictions on serious drug-bust cases. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

By    |   Monday, 22 July 2019 03:24 PM EDT ET

It looks just like pot and smells just like pot, but it’s not -- and that’s causing serious legal headaches for police and prosecutors nationwide.

Hemp is a variety of the Cannabis sativa plant that looks and smells like marijuana, but contains such a minuscule quantity of THC -- the psychoactive chemical in marijuana that makes users high – that it’s not considered a controlled substance based on federal law.

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It looks just like pot and smells just like pot, but it's not -- and that's causing serious legal headaches for police and prosecutors nationwide.Hemp is a variety of the Cannabis sativa plant that looks and smells like marijuana, but contains such a minuscule quantity of...
drug bust, marijuana, hemp, stop sniff, K9 search, legalization
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2019-24-22
Monday, 22 July 2019 03:24 PM
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