Texas lawmakers this year approved a strict ban on intoxicating hemp, but that measure was vetoed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor raised constitutional concerns because federal law allowed the products, but he then issued an executive order increasing state agency regulations, including age restrictions.

This summer, Florida regulators seized tens of thousands of packages of hemp products that failed to meet new child protection standards, including child-resistant packaging, marketing restrictions and enhanced labeling rules. In Tallahassee, the state Senate approved a ban on hemp-derived THC products, including beverages, but that measure died in the state House. A similar effort last year was vetoed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said it would harm small businesses.

Last month, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation strengthening state enforcement of its ban on intoxicating hemp products. Similarly, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine declared an emergency last month in an executive order banning intoxicating hemp products for 90 days while lawmakers debate potential legislation.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the primary psychoactive component of the cannabis plant. The 39 state attorneys general argue manufacturers are manipulating hemp to produce synthetic THC that can be more intoxicating than marijuana.

“In this way, legal, nonintoxicating hemp is used to make Frankenstein THC products that get adults high and harm and even kill children,” the attorneys general wrote.

Hemp-derived gummies and beverages are sold without consistent age restrictions or labeling regulations and oftentimes resemble candy. During his announcement, DeWine showcased brightly packaged intoxicating hemp products that resembled name-brand candy products.

“Certainly, it’s easy to see how a child will confuse this product with real candy and eat a few gummy bears and ingest enough THC to require hospitalization,” he said, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.

Though it has faced mounting restrictions in the states, the hemp industry says the federal change poses an existential threat.

On Monday, the U.S. Hemp Roundtable said the legislation pending in Congress would wipe out 95% of the nation’s $28.4 billion hemp industry.

“The language will force patients, seniors and veterans who rely on hemp products to break federal criminal law to acquire them,” the trade group posted online.

Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the organization, said the industry has been pushing for regulation rather than outright prohibition. He acknowledged the problem of bad actors, but said those can be addressed with strong regulations like those that exist in Kentucky and Minnesota.

“These are good examples of states that have put together robust regulations. But we need to see that at the federal level, and we’ve been supporting legislation to do that for the last seven years,” he told Stateline.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator, said he included the hemp measure in the bill to close an unintended legal loophole and that the measure would still allow farmers to grow hemp for fiber, oil and drug trials.

But fellow Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said the move would “eradicate the hemp industry” and could override some state laws. Paul offered an amendment to remove the hemp provision but failed.

>The hemp loophole

Hemp derives from the same cannabis species as marijuana, but is legally defined by its lower levels of THC, the psychoactive component of the plant.

While marijuana remains illegal under federal law, Congress sanctioned hemp in the 2018 farm bill to allow an agricultural market for hemp-based textiles, animal feeds and human wellness products centered on cannabidiol, or CBD, products. The farm bill allowed cultivation of hemp plants with a THC concentration of 0.3% or lower by dry weight.

But that threshold has become essentially meaningless, said Katharine Neill Harris, a fellow in drug policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

That’s because manufacturers have found ways to convert legal hemp plants into potent forms of synthetic marijuana. Aside from the potential of creating very strong products, she said the process requires the addition of solvents and other ingredients that raise many safety questions.

“With marijuana products, you can get some very potent products,” she said. “But the psychoactive components to THC are naturally occurring. It naturally occurs in that natural amount. You’re not doing a whole bunch of manipulation to increase the potency of the product and adding ingredients.”

Harris has tracked the growing number of states regulating the industry: Six states and the District of Columbia now ban all consumable hemp products with any amount of THC. In 24 states, intoxicating hemp products are permitted, though 15 of those states allow only low-potency products.

But even states with strict regulations still must contend with legal online markets.

“There’s a big part of that activity that you can’t control as a state when something is federally legal, and so that’s one thing that they’re asking for is federal leadership on this issue,” she said. “I think there is a big demand for some sort of industry standards.”

If approved by Congress and signed by the president, as expected, the new hemp legislation will likely have uneven impacts across the states.

For example, the change likely won’t dramatically alter the legal landscape in Alaska, where the regulators have banned all intoxicating hemp products. Marijuana businesses complain those products are still being sold, despite the ban.

But in a state like Nebraska, where lawmakers have been unsuccessful in limiting intoxicating hemp, the change could drastically alter both consumer access and business sales, depending on enforcement.

On Monday, Paul said the federal legislation would wipe away hemp regulations in many states, including Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine and Utah.

“The bill before us nullifies all these state laws,” he said.
‘Running with knives’

The hemp industry has argued that a lot of the opposition to it stems from marijuana businesses looking to protect their own markets, noting that campaigns for restrictions are often more organized in states that have legalized marijuana.

But producers of intoxicating hemp are looking for market access without the associated safety regulations and tax structures states have created for marijuana, argued Chris Lindsey, the director of state advocacy and public policy at the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp, an organization representing the legal marijuana industry.

“They want to have some kind of regulatory framework that’s somehow different than the one that states already have [for marijuana],” he said.

His organization cheered the Senate’s efforts “to address the dangerous proliferation of unregulated synthetic THC products.”

Lindsey said hemp-derived products can contain contaminants, including pesticides. Many hemp products can be sourced cheaply overseas, he said, and with lax oversight, there is no system to recall tainted products here.

“To me, that’s like running with knives,” he told Stateline.

The Missouri Cannabis Trade Association recently purchased hemp products from gas stations and smoke shops from across the state to test them in an effort to show they need more regulation.

In its “Missouri Hemp Hoax Report,” the organization said independent testing found 53 of the 55 products purchased were actually intoxicating marijuana well above the legal limit of THC. Third-party lab results also showed some of the products contained pesticides and heavy metals.

Those results underscore that the products should face the same rules as legal marijuana does, said Andrew Mullins, president and executive director of the cannabis trade association. State law requires marijuana to be grown and manufactured in Missouri, mandates lab testing and allows for sales only at licensed dispensaries.

“In my mind, if it’s marijuana, which most of this is, then it should be regulated like marijuana,” Mullins said.

He said calling the unregulated products “hemp” is akin to someone selling whiskey and calling it corn: “Everybody is using hemp as a cover to basically sell intoxicating drugs.”

Mullins acknowledged the confusion among policymakers and law enforcement. But he said there are already laws — including those against trafficking marijuana without a license — that could help address the issue.

Catherine Hanaway, a Republican who was sworn in as Missouri’s new attorney general in September, has vowed action on unregulated hemp products, particularly THC beverages that are booming in popularity.

“Our focus is on the health and safety of Missourians,” James Lawson, her deputy chief of staff, told the Missouri Independent last month. “This is an unregulated industry that makes untested, unknown substances available to the public without any oversight, including children where we think it’s particularly detrimental.”

Riders should be illegal. Putting unrelated text into bigger bills that are likely to pass is a dirty trick legislators do when they know they can't pass their own garbage standalone. It's how tobacco got its age restriction raised to 21.

>>1457000
It's ironic that one senator from Kentucky, MItch McConnell, added the text to the bill and the other senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, tried and failed to strike it.

They also slipped in a big fat $500,000+ payday for some republican senators to "compensate" them for their phone numbers being subpoenaed in connection to jan6 investigations. Not that they got wiretapped or anything, just that their phone number was put in the court documents.

>>1457040
Wish I could get 500k when the NSA spies on me (along with every American) all the time.

I hate how there's so much corruption that this little piece of graft will go unpunished.

>>1457040
They're admitting their complicity at this point.

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-supports-hemp-thc-ban-thats-advancing-in-senate-white-house-says/

>>1457168


President Donald Trump “supports” the proposed ban on hemp products containing THC that’s been included in a Senate spending bill, a White House spokesperson says as cannabis, alcohol and other interests continue their efforts to influence the final deal.

One day after the Senate cleared an appropriations package for floor consideration—with provisions that hemp stakeholders say would effectively eradicate the market—a White House staffer told NBC News that the president “supports the current language in the bill on hemp.”

While Trump endorsed cannabis reform on the campaign trail—including a pending proposal to reschedule marijuana–he’s also voiced concerns about non-medical cannabis use. During his first term, he signed the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized hemp and its derivatives, but he’s been less vocal about issue related to the cannabis cousin.

Now, eager for a plan to re-open the government amid a historic shutdown, the White House says he’s on board with the controversial ban, which is just one part of a major legislative package.

Marijuana Moment reached out to the White House for additional comment, but a representative was not immediately available.

>>1457170
>Trump supports criminalizing hemp derivatives
What happened to Trump decriminalizing actual marijuana? Didn't he make a big announcement about that a few months ago?

>>1457193
How would that support the prison industrial complex?

>People start smoking weed
>People stop drinking booze
REEEE BAN IT

>>1457293
Indeed. Banning it won't bring in the zoomers. Alcohol is so vile and terrible for your body. Not that weed is great, but it follows that it's another intoxicating substance.
>>1457193
It happened in 2018.

>>1457295
You aren't wrong, except that weed is actually great. I'm in a state with cheap, legal weed and you can buy liquor in any grocery store, and a federal ban would be a huge step backwards for everyone except the liquor and prison industries.

>noo not muh hekkin gas station drugs
You serious?

>>1457301
Synthetic weed was the worst. People were so fucked up on that Chinese shit.
>all to avoid testing positive for marijuana

>>1457300
Same here. But in a cool red state. Where we regularly walk down the street open carrying ARs while smoking joints.
And I do believe weed has technically been illegal federally since forever.
Ideally the language in the bill is bad, since it already passed, and it won't hold up to a court challenge.
Otherwise, liggerals and people from cool redstates, like me, will have to rely on libertarian reverse commies like Rand Paul to save us because Democrats are pretty much muslims, Indian, jews, and blacks right now. And while we know the blacks in congress will be in favor, Democrat diversity hires are destined for failure.

>>1457309
I'm in an okay swing state where rifles and shottys are nbd, but pistols are the devil for some reason.

>>1457309
>Where we regularly walk down the street open carrying ARs while smoking joints.
Anon just casually admitting to committing a federal crime..

>>1457340
You know what? The feds fear the armed pot smoker.

>>1457340
You know he's larping as an American right

>>1457403
Source?

Bill signed https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/hemp-thc-ban-21169676.php

>>1457005
Mitch is a giant piece of corrupt shit, we've known that since 9/11

>>1457520
Texas has always been a cheap beer state, so it makes sense they would double down on this.

Well they gotta make sure Pfizer and the Sackler family keep making addictive opioids that they can get people hooked on, otherwise whats the point? Trump wuvs his big corporation fwends