Politics
GOP Senator Attacked Over Push To Keep Hemp THC Products Legal In New Ad From Dark Money Group
A Republican senator’s efforts to craft regulations to keep hemp THC products federally legal is being called out in a new 30-second ad from a dark money group that doesn’t disclose its donors.
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) “wants to keep THC drinks on our shelves—not in the dispensary—at the convenience store, next to soft drinks,” a narrator says in the advertisement.
“Some pack 100 milligrams of THC—40 times the recommended starter dose—even sending children to the ER,” the spot, which is from a new 501(c)(4) group called NADP Action Fund, claims.
Hemp derivatives with less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill that President Donald Trump signed during his first term in office. But late last year, the president signed new legislation containing provisions that redefined hemp to make it so only products with 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container would remain legal after November 12.
Now, however, under provisions included in a funding bill Trump signed last month, the effective date of the ban for most products is being pushed back to December 11 to give lawmakers more time to craft regulations for hemp derivatives. There is a carve-out, however, to allow the recriminalization on November 12 of synthetic cannabinoids “that are not capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa L. plant.”
Sheehy is one of a handful of lawmakers who are working on legislation to regulate hemp THC products as an alternative to prohibition. The GOP senator has been collaborating with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on a yet-to-be filed bill that would call off the ban and lay out rules for the hemp market.
“Congress closed the loophole that let shady companies put them there,” the new ad, which was first noted by Politico, says. “Now Sheehy is working with shady companies to keep it open. Call Senator Sheehy. Tell him close the hand loophole and protect our kids.”
It’s not clear who is behind NADP Action Fund, the group that took out the new ad, or even what the acronym in its name stands for.
Its attacking Sheehy for wanting to “keep THC drinks on our shelves—not in the dispensary” made some hemp industry sources that Marijuana Moment spoke to suspect the group may be affiliated with state-licensed marijuana businesses, some of which see the federally legal hemp industry as a form of competition that unfairly has access to interstate commerce.
Several marijuana industry sources, however, said they did not know who was behind the ad, with some saying they suspected it came from prohibitionist groups that want to ban both intoxicating hemp products and marijuana.
Sheehy, for his part, said in a video posted to social media after the Senate voted to delay the forthcoming federal recriminalization of hemp THC products last month that his home state of Montana has an “an incredibly strong hemp industry” and that he and other lawmakers have “fought hard to make sure that hemp-derived beverages and those pain management products that are so important for our seniors and veterans remain legal.”
The senator posted the video after meeting with members of the hemp industry.
“We’re standing here supporting this industry because it’s critical to our farmers and it’s critical to our veterans and seniors. Our veterans and seniors for too long have been pushed to use opioids and alcohol for pain management, and hemp-derived beverages have provided a very healthy and easily accessible alternative,” he said. “We’re trying to regulate the industry so that only adults can access these beverages, they are FDA approved and healthy and, most importantly, they’re an alternative for folks to use besides the opioids and besides alcohol.”
The Republican senator previously cited hemp legislation as an area where Republicans and Democrats can work together in an otherwise “hyperpartisan time.”
“When we have an actual profitable crop that there’s genuine free market demand for that crop, and we have the ability to grow that crop in America and sell it profitably with free market enterprise reigning, and it’s not even government subsidized—it’s silly not to let that thrive,” Sheehy said during a meeting with members of Hemp Industry & Farmers of America (HIFA).
Meanwhile, the hemp product issue has proved controversial within the cannabis reform movement.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) last week sent an action alert asking its supporters to pressure Congress to reverse the scheduled ban on hemp THC products and institute a system of regulations for all cannabinoids as an alternative to criminalization.
A former MPP staffer who now works for the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH), pushed back in an op-ed for Marijuana Moment, however, arguing that “the charade of hemp intoxicants must end” and that “sneaking in the back door with synthetic drugs nobody asked for is not the path to legalization.”
