As of January 1, 2003 11:59pm EST, twenty-five percent of the states, provinces, and territories (S/P/T) in the United States and Canada will have legalized hemp for industrial and agricultural uses.
Percentages will not be rounded up: 25% and above pays $1.00 to YES claims, 24.99% and below pays $1.00 to NO claims.
As of March 4, 1996 there are 63 S/P/T between the U.S. and Canada, requiring 16 S/P/T for the claim to pay YES. Should the number of S/P/T change by the claim date, that new number will be used in judging the claim. Should Quebec secede by the claim date, it will count as one S/P/T.
S/P/T include territories in the Canadian sense (Yukon and NW Territories) but not the U.S. sense (Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, etc.). The District of Columbia is included, unless it is absorbed into a neighboring state. (A line had to be drawn somewhere.)
Hemp can be used to produce fiber products such as paper, textiles and building products. Hemp oil can be used for fuel, lubrication, paints, varnishes, and cooking. Hemp seeds can be used as food, rivaling soybeans in protein content.
THC levels in the hemp are irrelevant to this claim. Legalization for smoking hemp, a.k.a. marijuana, is also irrelevant to this claim.
An S/P/T will count towards the total required for He25 to be judged YES if the cultivation, transportation, sale, possession and end use of cannabis sativa is prohibited or prohibitively regulated by neither the laws nor actions of that state or the relevant federal government. (In this context, prohibitively regulated should be understood to refer to practices which make cultivation, etc. of cannabis sativa infeasible without the outright banning of such. This designation is necessarily subjective and will be interpreted at my discretion.)
For the claim to be judged YES, 25% of the above-defined S/P/Ts must meet these conditions between 5 Mar 1996 and 1 Jan 2003. The conditions must not necessarily be met simultaneously, nor need an S/P/T meet these conditions on 1 Jan 2003 for the claim to be judged YES.
As of 4 May 1997, no S/P/T met the criteria to be counted toward a YES judgement.
On 13 March 1998, Canada changed its laws to allow commercial production of low-THC hemp.
As of 1 April 1999 there are 64 S/P/T between the U.S. and Canada, reflecting the formation of the new Canadian territory of Nunavut.
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I will judge based on the intent of this claim, if I perceive such intent to be obvious. If such intent is ambiguous I will judge on the basis of the precise wording. If both are ambiguous, I will look for a solution which follows IF/FX precedent insofar as such precedent is apparent to me and applicable to the claim. I will seek the guidance of the claim's owner/author in interpreting the claim. It's his or her question - s/he ought to get the answer sought. If I believe this claim to have met a YES or NO condition, and if I believe judgement will be controversial, I will post a prospective judgement to fx-discuss and forestall entering the judgement for a comment period to be announced in the post.