Stop Hemp-Killing Amendment

We cannot let Congress get away with a low-key ban on virtually all CBD products. Action Alert!

THE TOPLINE

• As Congress works towards creating the text of the next Farm Bill, a dangerous amendment has been added to the House’s version that bans a vast number of ingestible hemp products.
• Hemp products with any “quantifiable amounts” of THC will be illegal—even though many natural CBD and full-spectrum hemp oil products have non-psychoactive amounts of THC.
• We have to oppose this terrible amendment to protect access to affordable CBD.

An appalling amendment has been tacked on to the House version of the Farm Bill that could spell the end of CBD and hemp products you rely on. This move comes despite the well-documented and ever-expanding list of health benefits associated with CBD and other cannabinoids. Such a sweeping ban will strip consumers of access to natural, health-promoting products. It is imperative that we voice our strong opposition to this attack.

The amendment essentially bans any hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing “quantifiable amounts” of THC, with those “quantifiable amounts” to be defined by regulators later. Put in plain terms, this would ban all ingestible hemp products with any level of THC in them. This means that many CBD oil and full-spectrum hemp oil products would suddenly become illegal.

The stated purpose of the amendment is to close a loophole created by the previous Farm Bill that has allowed unregulated, intoxicating hemp products on the market. Recall that the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp at the federal level, defining it as a cannabis plant with less than 0.3 percent THC (the psychoactive component that causes a “high”). In the six years since that bill became law, some companies found a way to stay within the guardrails put in place by the new law but still be able to chemically synthesize psychoactive or intoxicating products from legal hemp plants. These products include members of the THC family like delta-8 and delta-10. Delta-8 occurs naturally in the hemp plant at miniscule levels, but higher levels of delta-8 THC are produced artificially in the laboratory by chemically converting CBD through a process called isomerization.

While the merits of cracking down on delta-8 and other products can be debated, what cannot be debated is that this amendment goes far beyond banning delta-8 and similar products and takes a huge swipe at the hemp industry as a whole without any justification. Some of the best and healthiest products are full-spectrum hemp oils that contain all of the plant’s cannabinoids, terpenes, and fatty acids that occur naturally in the plant—including small, non-psychoactive amounts of THC. Banning, in one fell swoop, all hemp products with “quantifiable amounts” of THC is the very definition of throwing the baby out with the bath water and will take vital products out of our medicine cabinets.

Note that this is not the only threat to CBD access. Because CBD has been approved as a drug, the FDA maintains that it cannot be a supplement, though the agency appears only to be going after CBD companies making illegal disease claims. The agency has said that it believes a new regulatory pathway is needed to deal with CBD. Whatever that pathway is, you can bet the agency will do its best to protect drug industry profits by making it next to impossible to have affordable CBD supplements.

There is still a long way to go before this amendment becomes law. This draft of the bill will be considered by the full House of Representatives with further opportunities for amendments. This final bill will then have to be reconciled with whatever version of the Farm Bill the Senate passes. There is time, but we cannot sit back and wait. We must oppose this terrible amendment and kill it before the bill moves any further.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and oppose the anti-CBD amendment to the Farm Bill. Please send your message immediately.