Politics
Dozens Of Groups Led By Anti-Drug Association Urge Congress To Adopt All-Out Ban On Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids
Dozens of anti-drug, law enforcement and health groups are calling on Congress to impose a general ban on hemp-derived cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC. Their new letter asks lawmakers to support an amendment that was recently attached to a large-scale agricultural bill, a change that some hemp industry advocates say could also impact many non-intoxicating CBD products.
Rep. Mary Miller’s (R-IL) amendment to the 2024 Farm Bill, which was approved by a House committee in May, would remove cannabinoids that are “synthesized or manufactured outside of the plant” from the federal definition of legal hemp.
The change is backed by prohibitionists as well as certain marijuana companies, who’ve described the restriction as a fix to a “loophole” that was created under the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized hemp and its derivatives.
Unlike those who say the federal government should try to regulate hemp-derived cannabinoid products, the new sign-on letter, drafted and led by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), argues the products should be banned completely.
“Trying to regulate semi-synthetic cannabinoids will not work,” it argues.
CADCA’s letter asserts that semi-synthetic cannabinoids such as delta-8 and delta-10 THC, hexahydrocannabinol (HHC), THC-O and others “have caused major investigative and testing challenges as well as scores of unseen health and safety impacts” as products have become widely available, often without restrictions, at retailers online and across the country.
“To protect the health and safety of our communities, we need to completely close the federal loophole by explicitly excluding these products from the definition of hemp,” it says. “These products are continually innovated to circumvent existing regulations, underscoring the urgent need for a comprehensive ban to effectively curtail their availability.”
Signatories include CADCA and 51 other groups, including law enforcement associations (D.A.R.E. America and Drug Enforcement Association of Federal Narcotics Agents), drug treatment advocates (Treatment Communities of America), public health and doctors organizations (Washington State Public Health Association and American Association of Addiction Psychiatry) as well as opponents of drug use and marijuana legalization (No2Pot and Smart Approaches to Marijuana).
“Research suggests that use of semi-synthetic cannabinoids is associated with acute psychiatric disorders including severe psychosis, and lung, chest, and heart disorders, as well as injuries and poisonings,” the letter says. “However, we will not know the full extent of their harms for many years.”
The letter is addressed to the chairs and ranking members of agriculture and appropriations committees in both the House and Senate.
In addition to Miller’s amendment in the 2025 Farm Bill, the House Appropriations Committee last month approved a separate spending bill that contains a similar provision to prohibit cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC and CBD containing any “quantifiable” amount of THC.
If either measure is enacted into law, cannabinoids that are “synthesized or manufactured outside of the plant” would no longer meet the definition of legal hemp.
Miller said in support of the change in May that her amendment “will close the loophole created in the 2018 Farm Bill that allows intoxicating hemp products like delta-8 to be sold.”
“These products are being marketed to children and sending hundreds of them to the hospital,” she told colleagues. “We must stop teenagers and young children from being exposed to addictive and harmful drugs.”
Fellow GOP Rep. John Rose (R-TN) said the amendment “contains the clarification needed to decipher accurately the intentional and unintentional products currently developed under the 2018 definition of hemp.”
“Hemp is a product that requires and demands the correct guidelines, and if we do not provide these guidelines, we are threatening the safety of Americans,” he said.
A Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), said her support for the amendment is “related specifically to the benefit that it would have for Virginia farmers as they are trying to understand this ever-changing landscape.”
“Greater clarity is incredibly important, and particularly for fiber hemp producers, this amendment would make clear the valuable work that they do and make clear the viability of their product,” she said.
Several Republican members of the committee, however, made comments in opposition to the amendment.
“American farmers around the country have invested their time and resources over the last six years to develop a domestic supply chain of hemp and hemp products,” Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN) said. “Hemp provides a great opportunity for family farm to diversify their farm income by using him as a rotational crop.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) said the “issue is this Congress inadvertently created this problem in the 2018 Farm Bill because they could not reasonably predict, or they they didn’t reasonably predict, that these types of cannabinoids could be synthesized and then they passed this bill through in the intervening time.”
“There are now tens of thousands of Americans who have created different businesses, including several in my district now, that are using this process to feed their own kids,” he said.
How to address hemp-derived cannabinoids has caused some fractures within the cannabis community, and in some cases marijuana businesses have found themselves on the same side as prohibitionists in pushing a derivatives ban.
In a letter to congressional leaders ahead of Miller’s amendment, the U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC) proposed specific language they wanted to see included that would place hemp-derived cannabinoids containing any amount of THC under the definition of federally illegal marijuana.
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While they’ve focused on the need to address public safety concerns related to unregulated “intoxicating” cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC, some hemp industry advocates say the effect of the proposed language could be a ban on virtually all non-intoxicating CBD products as well, as most on the market contain at least trace levels of THC, consistent with the Farm Bill definition of hemp that allows for up to 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.
“The 2018 Farm Bill has wrongly been used to justify the mass production and sale of unregulated intoxicating hemp products,” USCC Executive Director Ed Conklin said in a press release following the amendment vote earlier this year. “We support a uniform approach to regulating intoxicating THC products. That means intoxicating hemp products should be regulated the same as cannabis products. We believe that all of these products should be available for sale to adults with strict age gating and safety standards.”
Meanwhile, the legislation that advanced through the House Agriculture Committee in May also contains provisions that would reduce regulatory barriers for certain hemp farmers and scale-back a ban on industry participation by people with prior drug felony convictions.
Specifically, it would make it so the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), states and tribal entities could choose to eliminate a policy that prevents people with felony drug convictions in the past 10 years from being licensed to produce industrial hemp.
However, advocates had hoped to see more expansive language, such as what was described in Senate Democrats’ recent summary of their forthcoming Farm Bill draft. Under that plan, there would be a mandate to eliminate the ban, rather than simply authorizing it, and it would cover all hemp producers, not just those growing it for non-extraction purposes.
The Senate Agriculture Committee has not yet released the draft text of their bill, so it remains to be seen if the summary description matches what will ultimately be released. Bipartisan House lawmakers filed standalone legislation last year that would broadly lift the felony ban for would-be hemp producers.
Lawmakers and stakeholders have also been eyeing a number of other proposals that could be incorporated into the Farm Bill—and which could come up as proposed amendments as the proposal moves through the legislative process—including measures to free up hemp businesses to legally market products like CBD as dietary supplements or in the food supply.
The hemp market started to rebound in 2023 after suffering significant losses the prior year, according to an annual industry report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that was released in April.
The data is the result of a survey that USDA mailed to thousands of hemp farmers across the U.S. in January. The first version of the department’s hemp report was released in early 2022, setting a “benchmark” to compare to as the industry matures.
Bipartisan lawmakers and industry stakeholders have sharply criticized FDA for declining to enact regulations for hemp-derived CBD, which they say is largely responsible for the economic stagnation.
To that end, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee earlier this year, where he faced questions about the agency’s position that it needed additional congressional authorization to regulate the non-intoxicating cannabinoid.
USDA is also reportedly revoking hemp licenses for farmers who are simultaneously growing marijuana under state-approved programs, underscoring yet another policy conflict stemming from the ongoing federal prohibition of some forms of the cannabis plant.
For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop’s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.
Meanwhile, internally at USDA, food safety workers are being encouraged to exercise caution and avoid cannabis products, including federally legal CBD, as the agency observes an “uptick” in positive THC tests amid “confusion” as more states enact legalization.
Photo courtesy of Kimzy Nanney.
