It’s just a bill
Friday, Jun 6, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* Marijuana Moment…
A GOP-led House committee has approved a spending bill containing provisions that hemp stakeholders say would devastate the industry, prohibiting most consumable cannabinoid products that were federally legalized during the first Trump administration.
Just one day after releasing the text of the legislation, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies advanced the proposal covering fiscal year 2026 in a 9-7 vote, sending it to the full committee for consideration.
The 138-page bill covers a wide range of issues, but for the hemp industry, there’s a section of particular concern that would redefine hemp under federal statute in a way that would prohibit cannabis products containing any “quantifiable” amount of THC or “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals” as THC.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chair of the subcommittee, said in opening remarks that the legislation “closes the hemp loophole from the 2018 Farm Bill that has resulted in the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoid products, including delta-8 and hemp flower being sold online and in gas stations nationwide under the false guise of being ‘USDA approved.’”
* Crain’s…
Hemp businesses immediately decried the proposed federal ban and said it was championed by anti-cannabis U.S. Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, a Republican who has for years introduced various bills to block or roll back marijuana and hemp reforms. Harris’ office used the same summary language in a press release.
“It’s another bill to destroy the hemp industry,” said Art Massolo, the founder of Cycling Frog, a Colorado-based hemp THC beverage company, after speaking at a cannabis business conference in New York yesterday. “The fact of the matter is that THC hasn’t killed one human being on the planet, ever. So what are they worried about? What are people so afraid of?”
Jim Higdon, co-founder of Kentucky-based Cornbread Hemp, said most Americans want a regulated national THC market, not a return to the days of cannabis prohibition.
“This amendment proposed by known anti-cannabis zealot, Rep. Andy Harris, would be a huge step backwards for the American farming economy and the American consumer. The American people have spoken repeatedly: they want legal, regulated cannabis products, not the sort of 1980’s-style prohibition proposed by Rep. Andy Harris,” Higdon said in a text message.
* Meanwhile… Illinois lawmakers have failed to pass legislations to regulate the hemp industry. Tribune…
The chief proponent of allowing hemp businesses to operate with further regulations in Springfield, Rep. La Shawn Ford, said lawmakers could not reach agreement over whether to ban or regulate hemp. But since the spring legislative session ended, Ford has had joint meetings with cannabis and hemp operators in an attempt to reach some compromise.
With the lack of licensing and taxation for hemp, and continued problems for cannabis, the state is losing out on millions in potential tax revenue, Ford said. “It’s always been industry against industry, so now everyone has made a commitment to work together to regulate hemp and make some improvements to cannabis,” he said. […]
Despite Gov. JB Pritzker calling last year for hemp restrictions, state lawmakers have been stuck between the two sides, unable to reach a consensus, and as a result have done nothing. Both cannabis and hemp businesses have made significant campaign contributions to legislators.
Rachel Berry, president of the Illinois Hemp Growers Association, said the lack of legislation allows business to continue as usual, but again misses an opportunity for “common-sense” regulation.
Thoughts?
- Haiku - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 10:15 am:
“Never hurt nobody” is the approximate quote.
My 28 year old daughter found that she rather liked cannabis after experimenting with it for back pain. The result is cannabis psychosis which we learned about on May 25 and will be doing everything we can to help her through.
This is a young woman who had it together personally and professionally that holds a graduate degree and never would have bought cannabis from anywhere but a licensed dispensary.
My thoughts: Bravo. After the two weeks I have had Reefer Madness looks like a sober and cautionary tale.
- sulla - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 10:30 am:
Haiku - sorry about your daughter. People can run into trouble with all manner of things in this world: alcohol, cannabis, gambling, food, pornography, religion etc.
Part of living in a free society is having the individual agency to decide what and how much to consume. People like Rep. Andy Harris want to strip that choice away from all of us. I reject that as authoritarian and an affront to the innate freedom of the individual.
- Candy Dogood - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 10:47 am:
===“Never hurt nobody” is the approximate quote.===
The prevailing message really should be harm reduction compared to other recreational drug use and alcohol, and our fancy modern versions of opium.
=== The result is cannabis psychosis ===
This is an area that still requires a lot of medical research to be more conclusive, but my understanding is that the links between THC and psychosis are acute and not permanent.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-024-00261-x
- Jeb - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 10:56 am:
THC and psychosis may be acute but not permanent, which does not discount the fact that they have been causing young males under the age of 30 an enormous amount of complications in life. I agree that a ban is not the solution, but higher taxes applied and using those dollars for research and education seems more than appropriate.
- ChicagoBars - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 11:49 am:
Two of the major liquor liability insurers now very specifically exclude these beverages from coverage. So if a patron who has had one or two merely trips & falls as they leave the bar or restaurant may need to eat the costs of defending that. There is third party coverage out there but it is a hassle to find & relatively costly vs the amount of hemp/thc beverage sales most bars and restaurants are doing.
The drinks have had a lot of growth but I don’t see that continuing as more places get to their annual policy renewals and realize the beverages aren’t covered. Guess we’ll see.
- Candy Dogood - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 12:26 pm:
===using those dollars for research and education seems more than appropriate. ===
At some point the body politic might be ready to accept that our mental health issues aren’t explicitly caused by drugs or alcohol and exist independent of those things and try to actually build a society that prioritize people as the ends rather than the means.
It’s nice to have things to blame that are “easier’ to fix in which the blamer can avoid any culpability.
- sulla - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 12:45 pm:
“At some point the body politic might be ready to accept that our mental health issues aren’t explicitly caused by drugs or alcohol and exist independent of those things and try to actually build a society that prioritize people as the ends rather than the means.”
Excellently stated.
- Dotnonymous x - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 2:27 pm:
Hemp/Cannabis is a false bifurcation…designed by BigCannaBiz…in order to put their competition out of business.
The weed consuming public knows better.
- Dotnonymous x - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 2:29 pm:
Candy Dogood… with the common sense.
- Jeb - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 2:37 pm:
=It’s nice to have things to blame that are “easier’ to fix in which the blamer can avoid any culpability. =
Welcome to the “Stone(d)” Age.
- Dotnonymous x - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 2:44 pm:
Easiest job in the world?…critic.
Every rich class that’s ever existed anywhere was over a poor class who suffered poverty for the upper class’s privilege.
- Dotnonymous x - Friday, Jun 6, 25 @ 2:52 pm:
I was going to comment…but the cannabis psychosis took over and forced me to think about ice cream bars.