A House committee voted on Thursday to ban intoxicating hemp-derived products.
Much of the House Committee on Agriculture’s hours-long markup of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024, also known as the Farm Bill, centered around concerns about bipartisanship and SNAP benefits during a time when food costs have soared. At one point, protesters interrupted the debate. But as far as the cannabis industry is concerned, all ears were tuned in for the fate of an amendment that would, in the words of its sponsor, “close the loophole” on intoxicating hemp.
Congress last passed a Farm Bill in 2018, and, with it, legalized hemp, defined as cannabis with .3% or less of delta-9-THC, the most abundant cannabinoid responsible for the “high” associated with the cannabis plant. This unleashed a booming marketplace that started with hemp-derived CBD but grew to include intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids like delta-8. As some states have moved to ban these products, legal debate has intensified over whether Congress intended for these products to be widely available, from gas stations to bodegas.
Now, the 2024 Farm Bill, an extensive legislative package that ultimately has little to do with hemp, is shaping up to be a battleground over the future of this unregulated multibillion dollar industry.
“These products are being marketed to children and sending hundreds of them to the hospital. We must stop teenagers and young children from being exposed to addictive and harmful drugs,” said Indiana Republican Rep. Mary Miller, who proposed the amendment. “My amendment would return the definition of hemp to Congress’s original intent, which was for industrial purposes and not intoxicating synthetic derivatives of hemp.”
The amendment passed, in a voice vote with other amendments. But the bill has a long way to go, and the Senate has yet to release its own full draft version. It remains to be seen whether a deeply divided and at times chaotic Congress will find enough common ground to pass a Farm Bill that regulates cannabinoid hemp products. But on Thursday, the House Ag Committee took that first step.
During the debate, Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican, began his comment by noting that he does not support adult use cannabis legalization. And while he understands the “intent” of the amendment, he’s spoken to constituents that will lose their livelihoods if an amendment bans hemp-derived products.
“The issue is this: Congress inadvertently created this problem in the 2018 Farm Bill because they could not reasonably predict, or they didn’t reasonably predict, that these types of cannabinoids could be synthesized,” Van Orden said.
He added that lawmakers’ ultimate passage of the 2018 Farm Bill then led to the creation of thousands of different related businesses.
“And now in order to right the wrong that they feel that they did, they are going to put tens of thousands of Americans’ jobs at risk, and they’re going to destroy an industry that was allowed to be created legally,” Van Orden said. “And so I don’t think it’s appropriate for Congress to retroactively go back and make an industry essentially illegal that’s going to put these people out of business.”
The industry members that Van Orden has spoken to say they want to be regulated, he said, but not regulated out of existence.
“I understand the intent of this. I think that Congress, again, is going to inadvertently do something,” he said.
Rep. Zach Nunn, an Iowa Republican, expressed his “sincerely felt concerns” about a national ban on hemp products. The father said that he supports protecting kids from accessing intoxicating substances.
“But this amendment goes too far by eliminating grain and fiber markets instead of protecting children through appropriate regulation to drive down the illicit marketplace,” Nunn said.
Nunn suggested taking more time to consider the ramifications of the amendment.
“This legislation should not be rushed. Under-developed policy attached to this legislation without proper consideration puts not only the Farm Bill at risk, but also puts us on a collision course with other departments and agencies,” Nunn said.
The debate around hemp-derived cannabinoids diverges from the debate around legal cannabis. Stakeholders that otherwise support legalization disagree on whether intoxicating hemp products should be allowed to exist, specifically outside of the same regulatory framework required for adult use cannabis. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable has sounded the alarm over Miller’s amendment, while the U.S. Cannabis Council supports it. So, too, does the leading anti-legalization group in the U.S., Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
