As Congress continues to navigate a path forward on funding legislation to end an ongoing government shutdown, lawmakers are still at work attempting to reach a deal on federal hemp laws—with one GOP senator telling Marijuana Moment that multiple options are on the table, though it will ultimately come down to what leadership wants.
While hemp and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, there’s been a groundswell of interest within Congress and state legislatures to address what’s been described as a “loophole” in the law that’s allowed the proliferation of unregulated intoxicating cannabinoid products. That’s come to the fore amid debates over agriculture appropriations legislation.
Two GOP lawmakers—Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD)—have pushed aggressively for an outright ban on hemp products containing THC. But others such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have insisted that such a policy change would devastate the industry. And Paul said recently he’d go so far as to hold up large-scale spending legislation if a full ban was kept intact.
“We’re trying to prevent them from killing, eliminating, the hemp industry—and we’re still working on the issue,” Paul told Marijuana Moment in a new interview on Thursday.
He also pushed back against a recent letter from 39 bipartisan state and territory attorneys general who implored Republican leaders to fully prevent the marketing of intoxicating hemp products.
“Some of them came back from states that have completely legalized marijuana, and they’re going to ban hemp? I mean, it’s just ridiculous,” he said. “So they prefer people to use a much higher dose of THC from cannabis than lower-dose hemp products. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee and also chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that handles agriculture issues, told Marijuana Moment that members are “working it out” with respect to the hemp issue.
“I didn’t say we had; I said we are,” the senator said in an interview while walking on Thursday. “In fact, when I get back to my office, that’s one of the things I’ll be working on.”
He added that “we’re making progress” and “have some good options,” but lawmakers “just have to work with our leadership and figure out which way we’re going to go with it.”
“There’s a number of options there, for example studying it for a year or having [the Food and Drug Administration] evaluate it,” Hoeven said. “There’s a difference of opinion on what the delta-9 levels should be as far as the THC and the [cannabinoids]. That’s essentially the issue, and there’s a range of ways to address it.”
“We’re just working through the options, and I’m not sure where we’re going to settle in yet. But obviously we’re engaging leadership as well, so they’ll obviously make the final call here,” he said.
As far as options go, Paul did put forward legislative language earlier this month to require a study and report on state regulatory models for hemp that could inform future revisions to the federal law—rather than prohibit sales altogether, as McConnell would have it.
Marijuana Moment asked McConnell about his Kentucky colleague’s proposed alternative solution on Thursday, but he declined to respond when approached at the Capitol and kept walking.
For what it’s worth, the House has not yet passed its version of the agriculture appropriations legislation. The bill, with a hemp ban championed by Harris, did move through committee, but it hasn’t reached the floor. And through a procedural protest on the Senate side, Paul got that language removed from the version his chamber passed.
Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told Marijuana Moment on Thursday that stakeholders are “waiting with nervous anticipation” for the ultimately outcome of the congressional negotiations, “but we do believe that things are moving in our direction.”
“We have, over the last few weeks, really ramped up our efforts to communicate with Congress, and the feedback we’re getting is is almost uniformly positive,” he said. “It really just appears that we’ve got two guys in McConnell and Harris that are dug in on the other side.”
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In August, McConnell–who ushered in the federal legalization of hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill–took to the Senate floor to criticize those who opposed the ban, including Paul.
Meanwhile, Paul recently filed a standalone bill that would go in the opposite direction of the hemp ban, proposing to triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.
The senator introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, in June. It mirrors versions he’s sponsored over the last several sessions.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
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