A ban on intoxicating hemp products was included in the House version of the farm bill.
If The alterationmanages to get through a polarized House and a divided Congress,This would end America’s brief experimentwith nationally legalized cannabis.
Olanguage added to the House versionof Rep. Mary Miller’s (R-Ill.) farm bill actually repeals a sweeping legal change approved by an all-Republican coalition in the 2018 farm bill.
That previous bill has made it much easier for American farmers to cultivate non-intoxicating varieties of cannabis, defined in statute as “hemp,” for industrial and medical use.
But vagueness in the wording of the law, combined with the fact that intoxicating and non-intoxicating varieties of cannabis (“hemp” and “marijuana,” respectively) are functionally the same plant, has allowed the evolution over the past six years of something not seen in America ever since. the Gilded Age: a thriving market for universally available and largely unregulated cannabis products, as The Hill reported.
“Due to the ambiguity created by the 2018 Farm Bill, a huge gray market valued at approximately $28 billion has exploded,” said a coalition of 22 state attorneys general.wrote Congress in Marchdemanding that members shut it down.
The 2018 law forced “cannabis-equivalent products” into our economies, regardless of states’ intentions to legalize cannabis use, and dangerously undermined regulations and consumer protections in states where legal cannabis programs already exist for use. adult”.
Miller’s amendment, which was co-sponsored by Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), who is from a legal marijuana state, narrows the definition of legal hemp to “natural, naturally occurring, non-intoxicating cannabinoids.”
This probably means that cannabinoids like delta-8 THC (which occurs naturally but is often chemically derived and certainly intoxicating) would be out of the question.
The same would happen with intoxicating beverages and edibles containing delta-9 THC or THCa — different names for what is roughly the same active chemical in “marijuana” sold in regulated states like California.
In a statement, Miller said she was “proud her amendment was included to close the loophole that allowed drug-infused THC products like Delta-8 to be sold to teenagers in packaging that looks like candy.”
The hemp sector, by contrast – a $28 billion industry for which the change is an existential threat – reacted on Friday.
O Hemp Round Table asked“all representatives must vote against the Farm Bill unless the Mary Miller Amendment is removed,” and referred to the language as “killing the hemp industry.”
The National Cannabis Industry Trade Group, which represents both industries, was more ambiguous.
Co-founder Aaron Smithcalled tosensible federal regulations that apply equally to cannabinoid products derived from hemp and marijuana.
Congress discussed addressing the profusion of possibly legal cannabinoids in last year’s tentative farm bill, but the combination of sharp divisions in Congress and the chaos surrounding the election of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested such attempts.
As with the farm bill, the potential crackdown on hemp brings together a series of strange bedfellows.
Marijuana growers in states like California and Nevada, which have tightly regulated recreational markets, were among the loudest voices calling for a crackdown on intoxicating hemp – a competing product that is often functionally identical to its own but devoid of any regulation.
In part, this happens because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration insists that hemp products are unsafe and therefore does not regulate them.
The change, however, will only have an impact on the large and growing hemp market if it is approved in the Chamber, which is far from guaranteed.
It would also have to pass the Senate, which requires both sides to find a way to implement food aid reforms that Democrats and a wide range of civil society groups consider cuts.
The Senate version of the farm bill reauthorizes the hemp programwithout changing its definition.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
