FROM THE HILL: Popular THC-infused drinks and edibles may disappear from store shelves in the next year as Congress is on the verge of passing a ban on nearly all hemp-derived THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, products.
Tucked into the Senate-passed government funding bill is a provision that would recriminalize many of the intoxicating hemp-derived products that were legalized by the 2018 farm bill.
The provision “prevents the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products,” according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary.
The hemp industry is scrambling to stave off what representatives are saying could be an extinction-level event.
Under the 2018 farm bill, the sale of hemp-derived THC products is legal so long as they contain less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight. Greater THC in quantities are considered marijuana.
According to the new language, “any intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products” would be banned.
“Ninety-five plus percent of sales in the hemp market have what are now disqualifying levels of THC in them,” said Joe Gerrity, CEO of the THC beverage company Crescent Canna. “The entire hemp beverage industry is gone. The THC market, the edible market, inhalables. All gone. … I mean, there’s no saving grace here.”
Company executives and industry trade groups say the legal hemp market, estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion by 2030, may disappear.
DMLNewsApp founder and podcast host Dennis Michael Lynch (DML), who also owns a successful CBD business called DML CBD, shared details about the provision in a Facebook post. He called out Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who slipped it into the government funding bill. DML confirmed that this would ruin many businesses, including his, and warned that decisions like this will hurt President Donald J. Trump in the long run.
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