Idaho State Police may get tests to tell hemp and pot apart

March 2, 2019

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho State Police may get the funding to purchase equipment that would allow investigators to distinguish hemp from marijuana after a high-profile case in the state grabbed headlines and prompted a federal lawsuit.

The state legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday approved about $240,000 for three testing devices for crime labs in the cities of Meridian, Pocatello and Coeur d’Alene, the Idaho Statesman reported. The funding must be approved by the House and Senate.

“This is in response to what we can see coming,” said state Sen. Abby Lee, a Republican. “They need these tools, and they need them this year. If they have an arrest, they can’t wait to send those results out to Kentucky.”

In late January, state police seized a semitrailer filled with 6,700 pounds (3,039 kilograms) of a green, leafy substance that a trooper believed was marijuana. The driver of the truck, and the owner of the cargo, insisted that it was industrial hemp. Hemp, a cousin of marijuana, has a very low concentration of the psychoactive substance called THC that gives marijuana its high-inducing properties

-snip-