Ask a Stoner: Hemp Farms Smell Just Like Weed Grows

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Dear Stoner: What if I live next to a hemp farm and hate the smell? They smell just like weed, but marijuana farms get all the hate.
4/20 Farmer

Dear Farmer: Cannabis growers still fight with neighboring businesses and residents sometimes, with the smell (and the children…you have to think of the children!) a popular argument in the pot-hater’s arsenal. In fact, in 2015 a Colorado marijuana farm was sued by nearby property owners who claimed the farm’s odor was hampering their quality of life, but a federal jury rejected that claim.

click to enlarge

Hemp fields wait to be harvested at a farm in Pueblo County.

Jacqueline Collins

Marijuana farmers still lose at the local level, though. The majority of Colorado towns and counties allowing commercial cultivations require that they stay indoors. Pueblo County, one of the few localities allowing outdoor marijuana farms, has received complaints from neighbors about the smell, leading the Pueblo County Commissioners to put a moratorium on new applications as well as expansions of such operations.

Hemp, meanwhile, can be farmed across the state, and doesn’t have to explain why in federal court. Even one of the Pueblo commissioners sees the hypocrisy in the varying attitudes regarding aromas emitted by marijuana and hemp, which are essentially the same plant outside of their THC differences — but hemp has federal approval and weed doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.

Send questions to [email protected].