Hemp advocates welcome Wyoming's new law

GILLETTE — For the last five years, Bill Fortner and Frank Latta have tried to convince Wyoming that “hemp” isn’t a bad four-letter word.

Latta, the director of the Wyoming chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), said hemp “is the best possibility for diversity” for the state.

“We were trying to get the powers that be interested, to have a little vision that there might be something different to look at other than energy,” he said. “That’s been a very hard sell.”

But recent legislation at the federal and state levels, House Bill 1...