This article by Tommy Gardner was published by the Stowe Reporter on Dec. 12.
The New York Police Department made headlines last month when it boasted about confiscating more than 100 pounds of Vermont-grown hemp on its way to a Brooklyn CBD store, mistaking the legal hemp for illegal marijuana.
Jimmy Goldsmith, a Stowe restaurateur who also grows hemp on roughly 7 acres in Worcester, has also just found out that there are still hurdles to shipping hemp.
Goldsmith said a shipment from his hemp business, Big CBD, was intercepted en route to a buyer last week.
Goldsmith said he had sent 25 pounds from the Hardwick post office last week — a typical shipment from his usual post office — and was told Thursday that it had been “stepped on” in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
He said it was the first time the business had had any of its product seized.
According to Goldsmith’s in-house counsel Jon Brigati, Harrisburg authorities think the hemp flowers, known as colas, contained THC, the active ingredient in recreational marijuana. But Brigati said Big CBD tests its products for THC content and is confident the authorities will come to the same conclusion after testing it, and send it back.
Brigati said the company has a letter on file with the Hardwick Post Office that details what is in each package that is sent, so the postal authorities in this area know what’s up.
But now, he said, the company is going to write something like “Industrial Hemp” in big letters on the outside of the package, and include a printed rundown of the package’s content and its test results inside the box, on the top and the bottom.
The lesson learned, according to Goldsmith?
“Don’t have faith in the system until the system has faith in you.”