Politics
Lawmakers Debate How—And Whether—To Regulate Hemp THC Products After Trump Signs Bill To Delay Scheduled Ban
Now that President Donald Trump has signed a bill that contains provisions to delay the federal recriminalization of hemp THC products that was scheduled to take effect in November, lawmakers are debating how—and whether—the crop’s derivatives should be regulated as an alternative to prohibition.
Several Republican lawmakers spoke to Marijuana Moment about the kinds of rules they would like to see enacted to keep hemp THC products legal, while one said he wants to ban them altogether.
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), who sponsoring a bill to keep hemp THC drinks legal while taxing and regulating them like alcohol, said that the market is a “burgeoning industry” and that her view is to “let people have the choice” to use the products or not—even though she has “never had a hemp beverage in my life.”
“I have heard from people in my district that want to continue to be able to buy it,” the congresswoman said. “The product that’s most commonly sold in the same basket is sauvignon blanc. So it seems to me the market is a bunch of yoga moms like me.”
Van Duyne told Marijuana Moment that the “White House is taking it seriously” and emphasized that her bill “does not take away from states’ rights to be able to do what they want to do as far as making it illegal or legal.”
“We’re following a model that’s already recognized and that it has already proven that it works” with alcoholic beverages, she said. “I’m just trying to do a very specific bill for a very specific product with rules and regulations that have already been established.”
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), who filed a bill this Congress to regulate hemp cannabinoid products, told Marijuana Moment that he thinks his own legislation is “darn close to what we need to do, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some compromise” with other lawmakers who are supporting different approaches.
“I would like to see the White House weigh in since we got the extension” on the effective date of the ban, he said.
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 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 this week, 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.”
“I just want regulation,” Griffith said. “You can argue about what the limit ought to be, and I’m not passionate about it… You have to have third-party testing.”
“In the meantime, the products are out there doing bad things to people who don’t understand how much THC they’re getting. Sometimes they don’t even understand they’re getting THC, and that’s bad,” he said. “These products are out there. They’re going to be sold.”
“I believe you can’t get that horse back in barn but we can corral it,” Griffith said. “So let’s put the corral on.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), a leading opponent of marijuana reform in Congress who has led the charge to recriminalize hemp products, told Marijuana Moment that “we gotta stop poisoning children—it’s that simple.”
He sees no need to craft regulations, pointing to the 2025 law he championed that redefined legal hemp by banning many products—saying that the newly enacted delay just means that “they’re poisoning children for one more month.”
“Everything’s been written. We have the statute,” he said. “It’s been passed a year ago. It’s all ridiculous. This is to make money for billionaires and poison children, and I’m not into that. The laws already exist.”
Van Duyne told Marijuana Moment that she thinks her beverage bill addresses the core concerns of Harris and of senators who are worried about intoxicating hemp products.
“It stops the product from being marketed to kids. It puts a ton more regulations on it than it has now,” she said. “It puts it more in alignment with alcohol and beverages. It taxes it and makes sure that it’s not synthetic. It limits the amount per serving.”
“We took all the concerns to heart and really tried to give a very strategic, very strict bill that solves the harms that we heard,” Van Duyne said.
Griffith, for his part, said that “Andy and I disagree” but that they have talked about the issue.
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, told Marijuana Moment that the federal government needs to figure out how to more broadly regulate cannabis—pointing to a bill he filed with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) that would create a commission charged with making recommendations on a regulatory system for marijuana that models what’s currently in place for alcohol.
“We should have a discussion with every agency that’s involved and spend the year trying to figure out what needs what and how to get to where we need to get and what does that look like,” he said. “Come to a conclusion. At the end of the year, have the report issued. We do it we beer, we do it with wine and spirits. Why can’t we do it with cannabis?”
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The Senate last month rejected an amendment from Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) and several cosponsors that would have removed the hemp ban delay provision from the funding bill, tabling it in a vote of 61-32, and the passing the overall legislation 90-6. The House vote on the bill this week was 370-48.
Harris and a handful of congressional Republicans threatened this week to upend their leadership’s agenda in protest of the hemp product ban delay advancing, but they did not succeed.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
