I love how we live in a state where Republicans brag about lowering taxes and yet WPLN reports that there's this shit going on:

A hemp license would run $250 a year plus $2 per acre. Inspectors would be allowed in the field at any time to check levels of THC, which is the only real difference between hemp and its look-a-like cousin, marijuana. The farmer would even have to foot the bill at $35 an hour, including travel time.

Call it licensing and fees, but it's still the government taking farmers' money. It's a tax in disguise. I'm not opposed to taxes. I'm not opposed to raising taxes when the state needs revenue. I am opposed to claiming that you're not raising taxes and then requiring licenses and fees for things — like, say, farming — that have never required licenses and fees before. It's still money out of farmers' pockets and in the pockets of the state.

And the only reason we need all this bullshit bureaucracy is because you can't tell a marijuana plant from a hemp plant by looking. So, someone's got to pay so that we can hire people to come out and check fields and make sure no one is growing pot. Or, you know, we could legalize pot and not concern ourselves with what farmers are growing.

That would seem to be the fiscally conservative thing to do.