A dangerous provision has been included in a Congressional spending bill that could spell the end of your access to full-spectrum hemp products. Action Alert!
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THE TOPLINE
- A provision in the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee’s FY 2026 spending bill would ban all ingestible hemp products containing “quantifiable amounts” of THC or THC-like cannabinoids—effectively outlawing many CBD and full-spectrum hemp oils that contain small, non-psychoactive amounts of THC.
- While the measure is framed as targeting unregulated, intoxicating products like delta-8, it goes far beyond that by threatening the entire hemp industry and cutting off consumer access to safe, beneficial full-spectrum hemp products.
- The provision still faces hurdles, including reconciliation with the Senate version of the bill and ongoing political uncertainty, but urgent grassroots opposition is needed to prevent it from becoming law.
If you rely on hemp, CBD, or full-spectrum hemp oil to support your health, listen up!
A dangerous provision buried in a House spending bill threatens to ban most of the hemp products currently available on the market. Just as research continues to confirm the remarkable healing potential of hemp and CBD—showing their impact on the body’s endocannabinoid system, which influences everything from mood to immunity—some in Congress are moving to strip away our access. We must raise strong grassroots opposition to stop this misguided policy.
The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee’s spending bill for FY 2026 contains a deeply troubling provision that effectively bans the production and sale of all hemp-derived products that contain “quantifiable amounts” of THC (one of the psychoactive components of hemp that provides the “high”) or cannabinoids with similar, THC-like effects. What “quantifiable amounts” means specifically is to be determined later by regulators.
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 goal 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. 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’s crystal clear 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 nearly 500 known compounds known to be present in hemp, including cannabinoids (>60), terpenes (>140), and fatty acids that occur naturally in the plant. Among this morass of compounds are tiny, non-psychoactive amounts of THC. The real benefits of hemp come from the “entourage effect” of all these different chemicals acting together. For example, a 2015 study found that highly purified CBD was somewhat effective in treating inflammation and anxiety in mice, but was substantially more effective when the CBD was present in a full spectrum extract because it benefits from the synergy from the full entourage of typically associated compounds.
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.
Remember, too, that 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 are still a number of hurdles before this can ever become law. Similar language was added to the Senate version of this bill, but Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was able to remove it. House and Senate versions of the bill would need to be further negotiated and reconciled before being sent to the President for approval. The possibility of a government shutdown in the coming weeks further complicates matters.
There is no time to lose. We must oppose this terrible policy and kill it before the bill moves any further.
Action Alert!
