Politics
Senate Advances Hemp Product Ban—But GOP Senator Has Last-Ditch Plan To Fight Back
A congressional spending bill containing a hotly contested ban on hemp products with THC has cleared a procedural Senate vote, teeing up consideration of final passage, expected within days. But one GOP senator has a plan to strike the provision, industry stakeholders tell Marijuana Moment.
The Senate agreed to advance the minibus appropriations package in a 60-40 vote on Sunday, with a handful of Democrats joining all but one Republican to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the legislation amid the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Hemp advocates and stakeholders have strongly condemned the hemp language as currently included in the package, warning that its provisions would effectively eradicate the market that’s evolved since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.
One of the industry’s most active supporters, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), isn’t planning to cede the issue easily.
According to two hemp industry stakeholders, the senator is pressing for a vote on an amendment to strike the re-criminalization language—or else block leadership’s plans to advance the overall legislation on a rapid basis, which could delay the process of ending the ongoing federal shutdown for days.
“I’ll vote no, but it also it’ll take them five days to pass this,” Paul told Politico late last week ahead of the bill text’s release on Sunday. He said the legislation would “kill an entire industry.”
Marijuana Moment reached out to Paul’s office for comment, but a representative was not immediately available.
“Our industry is being used as a pawn as leaders work to reopen the government. Recriminalizing hemp will force American farms and businesses to close and disrupt the wellbeing of countless Americans who depend on hemp,” Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, said in a statement on Monday. “We support Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to push back on this language and will continue to fight alongside him for a regulated, safe, and robust hemp industry.”
Under current law, cannabis products are 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 would apply to total THC—including delta-8 and other isomers. It would 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 would 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 would be limited to a total of 0.4 milligrams 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 would 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 know 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.
Separately, the newly released appropriations legislation excludes language that had been passed by either chamber earlier this year to let VA doctors recommend medical cannabis to their military veteran patients in states where it is legal.
The appropriations bill’s advancement comes amid a stepped-up push from parties on both sides of the hemp debate to influence Congress as they negotiated the deal.
For example, last week more than 50 alcohol distributors have joined together to oppose efforts in Congress to ban hemp products with THC, stressing to lawmakers that as demand for alcohol has “shifted downward,” the cannabis market has helped sustain their industry.
Interestingly, there’s particular division among alcohol stakeholders, many of which reported lobbying on hemp issues this year. There appears to be disagreement over the path forward as it concerns wholesalers who distribute alcohol and hemp products and major brands marketing their own beverages.
A coalition of major alcohol industry associations recently threw its weight behind a push to get Congress to ban certain hemp products—at least on a temporary basis before the federal government creates a “robust regulatory framework” for the marketplace.
A leading consumer trade association that counts among its members corporations such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé is also putting pressure on Congress to ban hemp products with THC.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 39 state and territory attorneys general recently called on Congress to clarify the federal definition of hemp and impose regulations preventing the sale of intoxicating cannabinoid products.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), who helped lead that letter to congressional leaders last month, defended his decision amid criticism from industry stakeholders and advocates who questioned why top prosecutors from states that have robust regulated hemp markets such as Minnesota would encourage the federal recriminalization of such products.
Two GOP lawmakers—Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD)—have pushed aggressively for an outright ban on hemp products containing THC. But others such as Paul have insisted that such a policy change would devastate the industry. And Paul previously cautioned that he’d go so far as to hold up large-scale spending legislation if a full ban was kept intact.
The senator also pushed back against the recent letter from the state and territory attorneys general who implored Republican leaders to fully prevent the marketing of intoxicating hemp products.
“Senator Mitch McConnell, architect of the 2018 Farm Bill, sowed the hemp seeds, and now seeks to scorch the soil, salting the fields of his own harvest,” Thomas Winstanley, executive vice president of Edibles.com, said. “Since President Donald Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law, hemp-derived products have evolved into a $28 billion industry, now found in liquor stores, grocery aisles, and independent retailers nationwide. The category supports 329,000 American jobs and contributes $1.5 billion annually in tax revenue, a rare bipartisan success story born of agricultural innovation and entrepreneurship.”
“For months, industry and agricultural groups have been calling for those safety regulations, not prohibition,” Winstanley said. “But banning legitimate hemp products won’t stop bad actors, it will only drive the market underground and further erode consumer safety. Hemp was meant to be a stabilizer—a modern crop for a modern economy.”
Meanwhile, the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) pushed an action alert urging its supporters to contact their congressional representatives and urge the passage of the hemp ban.
“Winning this vote is a crucial step toward making sure that a ban on hemp-derived intoxicants like Delta-8 THC happens,” SAM said. “Families, advocates, and everyone else concerned with real public health needs to make their voices heard—loudly.”
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As far as legislative options go, Paul did put forward legislative language recently to require a study and report on state regulatory models for hemp that could inform future revisions to the federal law—rather than prohibit sales altogether, as McConnell would have it.
In August, McConnell–who ushered in the federal legalization of hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill–took to the Senate floor to criticize those who opposed the ban, including Paul.
Meanwhile, Paul recently filed a standalone bill that would go in the opposite direction of the hemp ban, proposing to triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.
The senator introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, in June. It mirrors versions he’s sponsored over the last several sessions.
