Ron Sumners | Fotolia.com
Beef cattle fed hemp leaves still had measurable quantities of drug-like cannabinoids in their tissues six weeks after they went off the diet, according to forthcoming research from Texas State University.
Researchers at the university fed the cattle hemp leaves for 14 days before they stopped the diet, according to Merritt Drewery, an assistant professor of applied animal science at Texas State University. Six weeks later, they tested rumen, tissue and fecal samples and determined that cannabinoids from the hemp leaves were still present — a finding that would likely prevent meat products from those cattle from entering the market.
