Senate Bill 117, which won final approval from the entire legislature this week, will keep federal water flowing to Colorado’s hemp crop even amid broader differences between the Centennial State and Washington over drug policy.

A Senate GOP press release says the measure, introduced by Montrose Republican Sen. Don Coram, “…ensures that Washington can’t deny hemp growers access to water from federal reclamation projects, due to disagreements between Washington and Denver on drug and farm policies.”

The effort is intended as a shot in the arm for the state’s ag economy; the press release says hemp in fact could be the state’s next big cash crop. Which is why the legislation is needed to clear up any state-federal misunderstandings:

After Colorado voters approved hemp’s cultivation as part of a broader legalization of marijuana, questions arose about the legality of using federal reclamation water to grow a  crop often wrongly confused with marijuana. The issue came to a head when the Bureau of Reclamation stopped an Arkansas Valley farmer from irrigating his hemp fields with water from Pueblo Reservoir, a federal reclamation project, which had a chilling effect on the willingness of some Colorado farmers to grow hemp.

A brief primer on industrial hemp — as distinct from marijuana — is in order, courtesy of Wikipedia:

(I)ndustrial hemp … is a variety of the Cannabis sativa plant species that…can be refined into a variety of commercial items including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, paint, insulation, biofuel, food, and animal feed.

Although cannabis as a drug and industrial hemp are both members of the species Cannabis sativa and contain the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol… (h)emp has lower concentrations of THC and higher concentrations of cannabidiol (CBD), which decreases or eliminates its psychoactive effects.

The Senate GOP’s press release quotes Coram:

“It was time to end the uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding this question, by recognizing industrial hemp as an agricultural product for which a person with a water right decreed for agricultural use can use the water…We can broaden options for Colorado farmers, and strengthen the state’s farm sector overall, by finally putting to rest any doubts about whether growers of industrial hemp can use federal reclamation water on those crops.”

The proposal now heads to the governor’s desk.