The conservative state is on the front lines of what is expected to be a booming hemp industry nationwide.

Brian Furnish studied the thick, tan stalks dangling from wooden trellises inside his towering, pitched-roof barn.

After years of practice, the eighth-generation Kentucky tobacco farmer knew to check for even the earliest signs of mold on his plants.

But this wasn’t tobacco. Above Furnish was another plant with a long, complicated history in the state.

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Kurtis Lee ~ Los Angeles Times ~