Politics
GOP Operative Roger Stone Blasts ‘Cheap Cop-Out’ Hemp Ban That Trump Signed Into Law
Roger Stone, a longtime advisor to President Donald Trump, is joining the chorus of voices criticizing the passage of a spending bill with a ban on hemp products containing THC, calling the move a “cheap cop-out.”
After Trump signed the broader appropriations legislation into law on Wednesday, Stone published a blog post slamming the abrupt process through which the hemp language was attached to the bill and ultimately enacted into law, calling it an example of how Congress is in “the age of spectacle and subterfuge.”
Rather than address reasonable concerns about the hemp market that’s proliferated since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill and develop a “thoughtful law” to make fixes, lawmakers instead chose to bury “sweeping language in a must-pass spending measure,” he said.
“This is not regulation. It is prohibition by the back door.”
“Yes, I agree with restricting non-naturally occurring cannabinoids like delta-8 THC and synthetic analogues,” Stone, who has long supported an end to federal marijuana prohibition altogether, said. “The regulatory gap opened by the 2018 Farm Bill invited exact exploitations: quick ‘hemp’ analogues, untested psychotropic isomers, and retail shelves full of sketchy products. That needed to be cleaned up.”
“But what the Senate is doing is not cleaning up,” he said. “It is blowing up the entire industry.”
“Farmers, manufacturers, retailers and yes, patients who have come to rely on hemp-derived relief are all collateral damage. These are not small plants in the wind—they’re entire supply chains, state pilot programs, rural jobs, and agricultural investment. Repealing this via a spending bill is the worst form of policy: rushed, opaque, with no oversight, no expert hearings, no input from those who built the business under one regulatory regime and now find that regime changed mid-game.”
Stone said that Congress is “simply punting” on the issue, deliberately choosing to avoid tackling the “hard problem” of crafting and enacting a regulated market for consumable hemp products. Instead, lawmakers opted to delay the “real debate” by “hiding [the ban] in the appropriations process.”
“That’s a cheap cop-out. Worse: it signals to the world that U.S. policy will be reactive and hidden, not open, deliberative and fair,” he said.
Rather than default to recriminalizing hemp products, Stone said Congress should simply enact a statute that “distinguishes between naturally occurring cannabinoids, engineered isomers, and licensed therapeutic preparations; that sets potency standards based on science; that preserves legitimate wellness uses, agricultural opportunity, and patient access while protecting the public from uncontrolled psychoactive products.”
“We should also engage the USDA, FDA, DEA and state regulators in transparent rule-making,” he said.
“My recommendation: pull the hemp section out of the spending bill,” Stone said. “Congress should schedule hearings, invite farmers and manufacturers, calibrate potency and licensing, and pass a focused bill that addresses the challenge—rather than using the funding bill as a one-size-fits-all hammer.”
“Because when policy is made in the shadows, people pay. Not just big corporations. Farmers. Patients. Small business. Jobs. Access,” he said. “If you’re going to act, act openly. Debate it. Disclose it. Decide it. Don’t bury it. America deserves better.”
Stone isn’t the only one sounding the alarm about the potential ramifications of the hemp provisions that the president signed as part of the spending bill.
For example, the Democratic governor of Kentucky said on Thursday that the hemp industry is an “important” part of the economy that deserves to be regulated at the state level—rather than federally prohibited, as Congress has moved to do.
Meanwhile, a leading veterans organization is warning congressional leaders that the newly approved blanket ban on consumable hemp products could inadvertently “slam the door shut” on critical research.
While many hemp stakeholders say the ban would effectively eradicate the industry–even applying to nonintoxicating CBD products that people use for medical reasons—there’s latent hope that they can strike a compromise deal with lawmakers before the prohibition is implemented this time next year.
Lawmakers such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) also say that window could provide an opportunity to advance legislation to create an alternative regulatory model for consumable hemp products.
There were attempts by GOP lawmakers in both chambers to strike the hemp prohibition provision. But the proposed amendments from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) did not make it into the final package.
On the Senate side, Paul was joined by 22 Democrats—and, notably, anti-marijuana Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—in voting against a motion to table the amendment to prevent the ban, but the majority ultimately quashed it.
Massie tried to revive the push in the House with his own amendment mirroring Paul’s, but the prospects of its adoption were dubious at best, as there was generally consensus within the Republican caucus that the spending bill should advance without further modifications that could have sent it back to the Senate.
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Since 2018, cannabis products have been considered legal hemp if they contain less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis.
The new legislation specifies that, within one year of enactment, the weight will apply to total THC—including delta-8 and other isomers. It will also include “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals as a tetrahydrocannabinol (as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services).”
The new definition of legal hemp will additionally ban “any intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products which are marketed or sold as a final product or directly to an end consumer for personal or household use” as well as products containing cannabinoids that are synthesized or manufactured outside of the cannabis plant or not capable of being naturally produced by it.
Legal hemp products will be limited to a total of 0.4 milligrams per container of total THC or any other cannabinoids with similar effects.
Within 90 days of the bill’s enactment, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies will need to publish list of “all cannabinoids known to FDA to be capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa L. plant, as reflected in peer reviewed literature,” “all tetrahydrocannabinol class cannabinoids known to the agency to be naturally occurring in the plant” and “all other known cannabinoids with similar effects to, or marketed to have similar effects to, tetrahyrocannabinol class cannabinoids.”
The language slightly differs from provisions included in legislation that had previously advanced out of the House and Senate Appropriations panels, which would have banned products containing any “quantifiable” amount of THC, to be determined by the HHS secretary and secretary of agriculture.
Meanwhile, advocates are sharply criticizing congressional leaders for advancing the spending bill ahead of Veterans Day on Tuesday that also omits bipartisan provisions allowing U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical cannabis to patients in states where it’s legal—even though the policy was approved by the full Senate and House earlier this year.
Image element courtesy of Gage Skidmore.
