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As the hemp industry raises concerns about congressional attempts to ban most consumable cannabinoid products, a GOP senator has filed a bill that would triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.<\/p>\n
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, last week. It mirrors versions he\u2019s sponsored over the last several sessions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hemp and its derivatives were legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, but the industry has experienced multiple setbacks in the years since\u2014and the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoid products has led to pushes in Congress and state legislatures across the country to reign in the largely unregulated market.<\/p>\n To that point, a GOP-led House committee this week approved a spending bill containing provisions that hemp stakeholders say would devastate the industry, prohibiting most consumable cannabinoid products that were federally legalized<\/a>\u00a0during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n The legislation would \u201ceffectively\u201d criminalize hemp-derived cannabinoid products, including CBD,<\/a> according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.<\/p>\n In contrast, the newly reintroduced measure from Paul would address one of the most common complaints that lawmakers have heard from hemp businesses under the current law, which is that the crop is federally defined as containing no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. They say that\u2019s too low, and so the bill would increase that threshold to 1 percent.<\/p>\n It would also address potential problems with testing requirements under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. Hemp processors currently get a 15-day window to test the crop\u2019s flower to ensure that the THC concentration is within the allowed limits. But testing flower can be onerous and farmers have said it would stretch their resources thin, not to mention that the plant\u2019s THC is significantly impacted by external factors.<\/p>\n To fix that issue, the bill calls for final hemp products themselves to be tested, rather than the initial flower from the plant.<\/p>\n The legislation also sets documentation requirements for people transporting hemp shipments, intended to prevent further instances of law enforcement seizing the legal crop, believing it to be illicit marijuana. The bill<\/a> expands the type of documentation that people could possess to demonstrate product legality.<\/p>\n Whereas the initial version of Paul\u2019s measure filed in 2020 would have required them to carry a certificate from a lab\u00a0demonstrating that the product contains no more than 1 percent THC<\/a>, they could now instead choose to simply bring a copy of the hemp producer\u2019s license.<\/p>\n While stakeholders would welcome the senator\u2019s proposal, there\u2019s also significant anxiety within the industry about the separate legislation that would significantly upend the hemp market that\u2019s developed over the last several years.<\/p>\n While report language attached to the 2026 appropriations bill was recently amended to clarify\u00a0lawmakers\u2019 intent not to disrupt the non-intoxicating cannabinoid market<\/a>\u2014signaling that products like CBD shouldn\u2019t be banned\u2014the legislation itself hasn\u2019t changed and could still jeopardize the industry without further amendments to its provisions.<\/p>\n Hemp industry stakeholders rallied against that proposal, an earlier version of which was also included in the base bill from the subcommittee last year. It\u2019s\u00a0virtually identical to a provision of the 2024 Farm Bill that was attached by a separate committee<\/a>\u00a0last May via an amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), which was also not enacted into law.<\/p>\n A leading alcohol industry association, meanwhile, has called on Congress to dial back language in the House spending bill that would ban most consumable hemp products, instead\u00a0proposing to maintain the legalization of naturally derived cannabinoids<\/a>\u00a0from the crop and only prohibit synthetic items.<\/p>\n Members of Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) also\u00a0met with lawmakers and staffers in April to advocate for three key policy priorities<\/a>\u00a0that the group says is based on \u201csound principles of alcohol distribution.\u201d They include banning synthetic THC, setting up a federal system for testing and labeling products and establishing state-level power to regulate retail sales.<\/p>\n Separately, key GOP congressional lawmakers\u2014including one member who supports marijuana legalization\u2014don\u2019t seem especially concerned about provisions in the new spending bill<\/a>\u00a0that would\u00a0put much of the hemp industry in jeopardy by banning most consumable products<\/a>\u00a0derived from the plant.<\/p>\n \u2014 Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable,\u00a0told congressional lawmakers in April that the market is \u201cbegging\u201d for federal regulations<\/a>\u00a0around cannabis products.<\/p>\n At the hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) also inquired about FDA inaction around regulations, sarcastically asking if it\u2019d require \u201ca gazillion bureaucrats that work from home\u201d to regulate cannabinoids such as CBD.<\/p>\n A report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) last year\u00a0called cannabis a \u201csignificant threat\u201d to the alcohol industry<\/a>, citing survey data that suggests more people are using cannabis as a substitute for alcoholic beverages such a beer and wine.<\/p>\n Last November, meanwhile, a beer industry trade group\u00a0put out a statement of guiding principles to address what it called \u201cthe proliferation of largely unregulated intoxicating hemp and cannabis products,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0warning of risks to consumers and communities resulting from THC consumption.<\/p>\n Read the text<\/a> of the HEMP Act below:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Marijuana Opponents \u2018Have Lost\u2019 The Debate, GOP Senator Says, Arguing \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019 To Regulate It Like Alcohol And Tobacco<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Max Pixel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Rand Paul Files Bill To Triple Federal THC Limit For Hemp As House Pursues Crackdown On Consumable Cannabinoids<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
As the hemp industry raises concerns about congressional attempts to ban most consumable cannabinoid products, a GOP senator has filed a bill that would triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations. Sen. Rand PaulContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":81858,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81859,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857\/revisions\/81859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Rand Paul Files Bill To Triple Federal THC Limit For Hemp As House Pursues Crackdown On Consumable Cannabinoids<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"