Late Wednesday night, the House passed legislation to reopen the government and end the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
Tucked into the new Farm Bill, which was also approved Wednesday night and funds the Agriculture Department through September, is a provision that would completely change the way hemp is regulated.
The new farm bill fixes a loophole that allowed intoxicating hemp products to be sold nationwide as long as they contained a limited amount of the psychoactive compound THC.
The new limits on THC are absurdly low, argued Jim Higdon, co-founder of Cornbread Hemp, in Louisville, Kentucky.
“So CBD products that people, that adults, are taking for pain, anxiety, and sleep issues will become illegal,” he said.
Backers of the limits in the new farm bill say convenience stores and gas stations were selling intoxicating hemp drinks and vaping products to teens. There are no federal age limits, although some states restrict sales to adults.
Higdon said he’s fine with a nationwide age requirement, but “we needed guardrails and what they gave us was a death sentence.”
If Higdon registered as a state dispensary, he said that he couldn’t sell nationwide. That argument doesn’t get much support from Shanel Lindsay with the Parabola Center, a think tank of cannabis advocates.
She said the hemp industry was taking advantage of a loophole that allowed it to bypass state cannabis laws. “It’s improper to have two separate systems where one group is subject to high regulation, oversight — regulatory oversight,” and the other is not, said Lindsay.
The new rules for hemp sales won’t go into effect until November of next year. Higdon plans to lobby for changes, but Lindsay said hemp and cannabis sellers should band together and push for one national policy.