Senate Bill 153 significantly changed hemp cultivation laws in California. Approved by Governor Gavin Newsom in October this year, it intends harmonizing California’s laws with both the 2014 and 2018 federal Farm Bills. These bills legalize hemp production nationally, and the state wants to submit hemp plans to the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture, or USDA, in compliance with interim hemp laws. New USDA Hemp Regulations Despite all the best efforts of California legislature to comply, those interim regulations were just that: Temporary. According to the Federal Register, which came out just a few weeks later, the rules differ enormously from the plans California put forward. This is important because the USDA interim laws require the state’s hemp cultivation plans to be as restrictive as its own USDA rules, at the very least. This means that most of the current laws and regulations California puts on hemp production are …