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"I'm looking for new ways to replenish the regional budget. I think it's time to grow hemp..." wrote Sverdlovsk Region Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev posted on social media in August 2021. The day before, Kuyvashev attended the All-Russian Field Day, where staff from the Ural State Agrarian University discussed the benefits of industrial hemp.

Things didn't stop with just talk: in the fall of 2023, USAU specialists presented an experimental field where raised 25 hectares of hemp. This field is part of carbon truss, developed by farmers to combat the greenhouse effect. Hemp is capable of absorbing carbon several times better than many plant species—this property is what attracted the university's specialists.

When industrial hemp was just beginning to be grown in the Sverdlovsk region, local journalists filmed TV report about its benefits. They explained that thousands of products can be made from hemp and that hemp textiles are "especially durable" and hypoallergenic. "This production is completely waste-free. Hemp produces fiber. It produces oil, which contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are very beneficial. And protein: hemp is very high in protein," Mikhail Karpushin, Vice Rector for Research and Innovation at USAU, told reporters.

The celebratory Vesti report doesn't even hint that less than a year before the carbon farm's presentation, special forces confiscated seven tons of industrial hemp seeds grown on Ural State Agrarian University lands.

Officially the Russian government allowed Industrial hemp cultivation began in 2010. Industrial varieties contain no more than 0,1% of the psychoactive substance THC, meaning they are not considered a narcotic. Fourteen years have passed, but some entrepreneurs believe that Russian hemp cultivation has yet to develop into a fully-fledged industry.

On evaluation According to Vedomosti, as of 2022, the share of Russian industrial hemp on the global market does not even exceed 5%. In July 2023, Yulia Divnich, Director of the Hemp Growers Association, said Olga,, that there is no demand for hemp raw materials in Russia due to a lack of suitable processing equipment. This is where China comes to the rescue: at a minimum with 2019 years Russian hemp growers are selling hemp raw materials to their neighbors, who, on the contrary, are already running out of their own cultivation space. Hemp products are in demand there: even the local army is eager to outfit its troops in hemp uniforms.

Russian entrepreneurs they sayThe domestic hemp business has become focused on food products: producing teas, snacks, and other products from industrial hemp isn't always profitable, but it's the easiest from a technical standpoint. Meanwhile, production volumes of hemp fabrics and building materials in Russia are still small.

Hemp growers are also producing experimental products on a limited scale: some are making eco-friendly disposable tableware, while more politically minded businessmen are making products from hemp fiber. protective nets for mobilized personnel.

Hemp enthusiasts in Russia look back with nostalgia on the Soviet era: the Soviet Union was the world leader in hemp cultivation. By 1927, the crops occupied about 900 thousand hectares – more than 70% of the world’s total cultivated area.

But during the Great Patriotic War, due to the militarization of the economy and the devastation of farms, the area under hemp cultivation decreased by two-thirds and never returned to pre-war levels. In 1961, the USSR ratified the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs, after which the area under hemp cultivation significantly decreased. It wasn't until 1973 that the development of non-psychoactive strains began.

At the same time, the USSR led the fight The underground drug market involved, among other things, industrial hemp. Consequently, its production continued to decline. And in 1987, the government finally banned the cultivation of any strains—in the wake of the general fight for sobriety as part of the anti-alcohol campaign.

Although government regulations, permitting the cultivation of hemp, appeared more than 10 years ago, journalists have been consistently describe The industry is viewed as exotic. The industry has a mission to restore its former glory, but it's harmed by the continued association of industrial hemp with drugs.

USAU's first hemp field appeared in the Sverdlovsk region back in the summer of 2022. Back then, the company Rustekhkon planted 15 hectares of hemp on land leased from the university. The company was founded by Nikita Solovyov, director of the Yekaterinburg-based Green Ural Foundation, which monitors the region's environmental situation. If the foundation's staff discovers environmental issues, they submit appeals to the authorities.

A year earlier, Solovyov had also attended the All-Russian Field Day, where USAU specialists discussed the benefits of industrial hemp. The prospects intrigued him, and he decided to open his own business in this industry.

In that very TV report about the benefits of cannabis, Solovyov рассказал Rustekhkon told journalists about its development plans. The company planned to invest 2,5 billion rubles in production over five years, including through government funding. The 13-14 tons of hemp seeds harvested after the first sowing were to be used to make various food products.

But the matter never reached production. In November, the company found itself in the news: an anonymous tip-off to the police that drugs were being stored in a warehouse belonging to Sverdlovsk cannabis growers, and operatives searched Warehouse. Analysis of narcotic substances in Rustekhkon hemp seeds didn't find itThe searches did not result in criminal charges, and the products seized from the company were soon returned.

After the searches, Nikita Solovyov thanked "for a PR campaign and free laboratory testing of seeds" by Yekaterinburg television producer Evgeny Gubko. Gubko bind with the management of the ZheldorPut company. In the fall of 2022, Nikita Solovyov, as director of the Green Urals Foundation He accused "ZheldorPut" in the unauthorized seizure of forest and land plots, and after his complaint to the Prosecutor's Office, the company got under investigation.

Despite his personal experience with searches, the founder of Rustekhkon believes that hemp growers shouldn't fear law enforcement: "You need to approach the head of the police department in the area where industrial varieties are grown in advance: show up, talk, and show all your documents. Rosselkhoznadzor certificates confirm that everything is legal and legitimate. You resolve the matter in a civilized manner, and then they'll know you. You'll be treated not as a potential drug dealer, but as someone involved in the agricultural business."

Rustekhkon hasn't released any industrial hemp products since 2023. Nikita Solovyov resigned as Rustekhkon's director in the spring, and the company is now preparing to relaunch. According to current director Dmitry Zavyalov, production will resume in February 2024. However, Rustekhkon no longer plans to grow hemp; they now plan to make products from purchased hemp raw materials. Zavyalov explained this decision to a reporter by saying that growing hemp "has its own nuances, and it's not all that simple," and after their first attempt, the company's founders "realized a few things."

In 2021, Russian hemp growers learned that law enforcement agencies could, if they so desired, classify industrial hemp products as narcotic, even despite the tiny percentage of psychoactive substance.

Then, in Moscow, Maxim Shevchenko, head of the Altuma company, was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and trafficking. This became the first high-profile case against cannabis growers. Shevchenko had certificates certifying the absence of drugs in his products, but law enforcement officers found THC in the tea, and the amount of psychoactive substance was not calculated during testing. In March 2021, Shevchenko was also charged with drug propaganda: the names of his company's hemp tea brands, "Big Shishka" and "DoctorDja," according to investigators, hinted at the narcotic cannabis.

However, the drug possession case against Maksym Shevchenko will be opened by the fall of 2021. closed Due to lack of evidence of a crime, the businessman was released from pretrial detention. The court also heard the propaganda case. ceased, since the website where Altuma products were sold did not belong to the company. The hemp grower now heads the Khakass branch of the Opora Rossii entrepreneurs' association and receives awards for helping those mobilized for war. In June 2023, Shevchenko wrote, who is returning to the hemp tea trade. He said that in a 2021 case, a competitor tried to "get rid of him through friends in the Ministry of Internal Affairs," but now this person has allegedly become a defendant in a criminal case.

Yet, in recent years, cannabis growers have been forced to strictly monitor their advertising: the number of administrative cases for drug promotion is growing each year. According to Arseniy Levinson, a lawyer specializing in drug-related cases, in the first half of 2023, courts issued 343 convictions for drug promotion, with fines totaling 4,048,200 rubles.

Lawyers from the human rights project Hand Help Found out, that these cases mostly involve graphic images or photographs of leaves resembling hemp. Law enforcement is primarily interested in clothing with leaf prints, but fines are also issued for images on the packaging of industrial hemp products.

In 2021, Vologda businessman Alexey Kochin's Poskon cooperative was fined one million rubles for an ad selling hemp tea. The court ruled that the photo of a hemp leaf in the ad was a covert advertisement for psychoactive cannabis.

Typically, cases involving drug propaganda through images of cannabis are based on botanical and psycholinguistic examinations: biologists confirm to the court that the image depicts a plant of the genus hemp, without specifying which variety's leaf is depicted (industrial hemp has fewer leaves than marijuana). Thus, the experts involved automatically equate industrial hemp with psychoactive varieties. Psychologists, for example, may decide that the objectionable image "reinforces the display of a leaf of a plant of the genus hemp in the mind as normal and can encourage interest in narcotics."

Due to such court rulings, marketplaces are wary of the hemp business. Hemp tea is still widely sold only on Yandex.Market, and some hemp growers have even been refused hemp textiles by online platforms: the creators of HempForLife toldWildberries, without explanation, refused to stock products containing hemp fiber. In March 2021, Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, called upon The Ministry of Industry and Trade is tightening pre-moderation of ads on marketplaces: according to the Ministry, League volunteers have found examples of drugs being sold as food products.

"We, as they say, got our fill of the hype in 2019-2020," says Alexey Kochin. "At that time, manufacturers were competing to see who had the most provocative packaging. The guys from Khakassia won: they spent six months in jail, and we only paid a million."

In his opinion, not a single hemp tea producer has since integrated into large-scale offline retail. The hemp tea business is built on one-time sales in cafes and food markets. Negotiating with marketplaces or supermarket chains is impossible.

It's not just tea packaging that's being fined under the propaganda statute. Court rulings on propaganda in recent years have included hemp-based perfumes, culinary hemp oils, and hemp-infused beverages. Moreover, even those who had nothing to do with the production of these products have been found guilty. For example, in 2022, the Kaliningrad Central Court fined a programmer who posted information on an online store's website about a beer whose label, according to expert assessments, contained images of hemp.

In November 2022, a discussion erupted in the "Penka" chat. One user pointed out that a well-known industry brand had managed to list a THC-extracted alcoholic beverage on Wildberries. Some immediately began discussing whether to file a complaint with Wildberries and contact the police. Others responded that the industry already had too many problems.

"Snitches. So he sells, and he sells. He passed moderation, and so he passed... The bigger the market, the more opportunities! And even if it's illegal, you need to learn! Otherwise, we can't even get the word "Hemp" out," wrote one participant. (Spelling preserved)

Another participant countered, "We're not here to start a revolution, but to clearly understand the law. What's not regulated must be regulated. Right now, the issue concerns seeds and food products, which don't contain THC at all. And the food industry's problems are arising, in part, because someone is trying to play games with the law." (Spelling preserved)

The product disappeared from the marketplace within three hours. This dialogue reveals two main positions in the cannabis community: some want to strictly separate industrial and psychoactive cannabis legally, while others believe that only full legalization will solve the problem.

The topic of CBD, or cannabidiol, is a point of contention for cannabis growers—entrepreneurs want to produce products containing this substance. Although it is synthesized from THC-containing strains, it is not psychoactive in itself. Cannabidiol, according to researchers, helps fight anxiety, and is being tested as a means of fighting cancer cells, but the substance is still not legalized even abroad. Cannabidiol is not officially list narcotic substances in the Russian Federation. Russian businessmen import them, in particular, from the United States.

According to lawyer Arseniy Levinson, despite the lack of an official ban, criminal cases are regularly brought in Russia for purchasing and importing CBD products from abroad. For example, in 2023, a customer of an online store was sentenced to six years in prison for smuggling and possessing large quantities of dietary supplements containing cannabidiol, which the court ruled to be "hashish" oil.

Yet, Russian cannabis growers haven't lost interest in cannabidiol: they're ordering CBD oil, which can be used as a food supplement or cosmetic ingredient. It can be found in Russian online stores and small brick-and-mortar retailers. masks и serum for face, dietary lemonades and soluble hot chocolate, nutritional supplements for animals and many other CBD products are all available over the counter. But experts Recommend Carefully study the certificates for such products to ensure that the THC content in them does not exceed 0,1%.

There are attempts to lobby for the production of CBD products in the political arena. In July 2023, businessman Andrey Pangayev рассказал, who, in collaboration with Sechenov University, developed CBD-based drops for post-traumatic stress disorder, and announced the possible start of drug deliveries to the "SVO" in 2023-2024. Since 2020, Pangayev has also been a member of the commission for the development of the economy, entrepreneurship, and rural areas at the Novosibirsk Region Public Chamber. The oil has not yet been released, but in January 2024, he рассказал about work on the drug at a meeting with employees of the Ministry of Defense.

Lawyer Arseniy Levinson believes that CBD is in a legal gray area for good reason: "The legality of CBD needs to be officially clarified, and overall regulation needs to be made more transparent and definitive. Only corrupt law enforcement officials can stand in the way of this, as regulatory uncertainty breeds corruption."

One of the main problems in the hemp business is the legal conflict that simultaneously prohibits and permits industrial hemp. Forensic chemist Dmitry Gladyshev told a correspondent that the government decree permits the cultivation of hemp, but not its distribution. This means that the entire law applies to regulating hemp products, which is prohibitive when it comes to drug control. "Everything you produce can be seized from circulation and subject to criminal prosecution," Gladyshev said. "Now the trap has been sprung. It's set and awaiting its victims."

A fellow plant with industrial hemp in its fluctuating drug status is the edible poppy. The case against Chita dealer Alexander Startsev and Elena Antipenskaya vividly illustrates their common problem. In 2022, they sent They were detained in a pretrial detention center because alkaloids were found in the packages of poppy seeds sold by the defendants. Startsev and Antipenskaya appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that poppy and hemp varieties permitted for cultivation are also listed as narcotic plants prohibited for circulation. They also argued that law enforcement officials were abusing the law: they were initiating criminal cases simply because of the presence of traces of opiates in the products, despite the fact that poppy seeds contain very little of them.

Arseniy Levinson points out that quantitative assessment of the narcotic substance (THC) content in marijuana or hashish oil is not usually carried out (as was the case with Altuma founder Maksym Shevchenko), so the risk of similar fabricated criminal cases being brought against cannabis growers remains quite high.

Dmitry Gladyshev suggests that the enforcement of prohibitive measures is only hampered by personal contact between some cannabis growers and the police: "Many cannabis growers have rose-colored glasses. They think everything is fine; that they've reached an agreement with the police and nothing will be done. Nothing of the sort: based on the Supreme Court's ruling, parts of the cannabis plant containing THC are prohibited from circulation. It's absolutely clear—and it doesn't matter how much THC is in them."

In March 2023, the authorities of France, the European leader in the hemp industry, approved Temporary rules for the legal circulation of CBD products: even in a state of partial legalization, the French CBD market was estimated at 300 million euros by that time. In the fall стало известноIn Canada, five years after the legalization of THC-rich strains, the cannabis market has become so overheated that recent legalization enthusiasts have moved on to other industries, such as growing orchids. In 2022, cannabis was also decriminalized in Thailand: companies and individuals were allowed to grow cannabis, and local cafes began selling food and drinks with a THC limit of 0,2%. However, as of August 2023, the new government began to threaten the population with a return to a more restrictive drug policy. In China, local producers  invest Multimillion-dollar investments in the construction of seed processing factories abroad.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture predictedBy 2025, the total area under hemp cultivation will increase to 20 hectares, and seasonal hemp fiber production will reach 10 tons. It's unclear whether the government will provide any support for the industry. However, in June 2023 was It is known that the first plant in Russia for the production of animal feed using industrial varieties will be launched in Bugulma: for this purpose, 2 thousand hectares of hemp will be sown in Tatarstan.

Participants in the "Penka" chat are more concerned with the prospects of their professional community than with their planting plans: in December, hemp growers began discussing the need for regular meetings to discuss business projects and formulate proposals for legislative improvements that could be submitted to the government. The chat's businessmen scheduled their first Zoom meeting for the end of January.

According to businessman Alexander Kostochenko of Ural Hemp, the hemp industry in Russia is fueled by enthusiasm. He views his hemp business as a mission: "We must tell people that such a great product exists. It's produced here in Russia, it's very high-quality, and—most importantly—very healthy. Our main goal now is to launch a large project so that we can produce even more of the products we currently have in stores ourselves in the Sverdlovsk region."

Nikita Solovyov from Yekaterinburg sees global benefits in the hemp industry: "This isn't some small story, but a major project that can truly help the entire world. Hemp has enormous benefits in reducing or offsetting our carbon footprint."

Vologda cannabis grower Alexey Kochin, who paid a million-ruble fine two years ago, believes that cannabis cultivation will continue to grow slowly. He's not giving up the business just yet, hoping that in the next few years, Russia will legalize the cultivation of medical cannabis, a new and profitable prospect.

"Those I know, those with whom we started and those who finished, had a very pragmatic reason for ending their work with hemp: they lack specialized equipment, and it costs a billion," Kochin reasons. "Those who continue hemp projects are motivated by inertia and the desire to recoup their investments. The situation is like a suitcase without a handle: it's a shame to throw it away, but it's hard to carry."

Natasha Lipovetskaya

The text was prepared jointly with the project "Mentoring"