Senate Farm Bill draft signals bipartisan desire to address intoxicating hemp

Congress will likely not pass a new Farm Bill until 2025.

But when it does, the “loophole” that’s allowed hemp-derived products with intoxicating levels of THC to proliferate across the country over the past six years will be closed.

That’s the understanding on Capitol Hill after U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan released a proposal on Monday that redefines hemp to address cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC as well as the so-called “THCA loophole.”

Republicans pounced on Stabenow – the ranking but retiring Democrat on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee – for releasing a draft Farm Bill 400 days after the 2018 version expired.

The bill also comes nearly six months after the Republican-controlled House held hearings on its own proposal.

With so little time before the new Congress is seated in early January – and with major must-pass budget bills on a short agenda – there is little hope in Washington, D.C., that the Farm Bill will be settled in the lame-duck session.

Bipartisan desire for hemp THC crackdown

Instead, the Farm Bill draft is considered an agenda-setting signal.

And it signals that both parties want to address the hemp question in a way that sellers of hemp-derived THC products might not like.

The Republican House version includes a controversial amendment from U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Indiana that banned hemp-derived THC outright.

Stabenow’s Democratic Senate proposal doesn’t ban, but it does restrict, redefining hemp as having 0.3% or less “total THC,” as opposed to just delta-9 THC.

It also is “including tetrahydrocannabinolic acid,” or THCA.

While some states define total THC as inclusive of TCHA, THC’s biosynthetic precursor that becomes psychoactive when heated, federal law did not make that distinction.

That’s led some ambitious sellers to offer “THCA flower” for sale online and across state lines, claiming it is federally legal hemp.

Hemp THC to be addressed in next Farm Bill

The Farm Bill drafts mean Congress sees fixing the hemp situation “as a priority before some of the other, incremental cannabis reforms” such as banking protections, said Shanita Penny, a senior vice president at Forbes Tate and co-executive director of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education and Regulation (CPEAR).

Many states have taken steps to regulate or ban popular intoxicating hemp-derived products even as the federal status quo remains.

It’s a reminder that lawmakers are aware “these products are on the market and have a huge risk to public health and safety,” Penny told MJBizDaily on Tuesday.

The Farm Bill proposal also signals it’s far less likely that marijuana and hemp will be addressed in stand-alone legislation.

Instead, Penny added, Congress understands that “we have to do what we can today, and that would be addressing it where it started – with the Farm Bill.”

Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.