Hemp and alcohol industry stakeholders are on full alert amid a pending ban on hemp THC products—including increasingly popular cannabinoid beverages—and a former Democratic congressman who owns a major alcohol company is looking for solutions.
At Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s (WSWA) recent Access LIVE 2026 event in Las Vegas, which brought together top players in the cannabis and alcohol markets, former Rep. David Trone (D-MD) and stakeholders discussed the policy landscape around hemp and how to avert an industry-wide upheaval under spending legislation President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
While the 2018 Farm Bill that Trump enacted during his first term federally legalized hemp and its derivatives, allowing states to set “their own myriad of laws” that lawmakers sifted through “to make sure we got it right,” that policy is set to be unravelled come November, when separate legislation will enter into force prohibiting most hemp THC products.
“This is now an adult beverage category, whether it’s a beer tonight or a glass of wine or an adult hemp beverage,” Trone, who owns Total Wine & More, said.
The former congressman said that if federal law moves away from regulation to recriminalization, “there’ll be an underground economy” for hemp. Rather than take that risk, he said there should be Food and Drug Administration- (FDA) approved “three-tier” solutions.
“Putting hemp beverages in the three-tier system [is] the common sense—the right way,” Trone said, stressing that FDA should be involved “to make sure what’s in that can or bottle is exactly what it says on the outside.”
Charlie Merinoff, founder of Breakthru Beverage Group, said at the event that “the clock is ticking.”
“We’ve got to get it done by the summer recess or it’s not getting done,” he said. “You cannot put the genie back into the bottle. This is out there. The consumer wants it. What we need is regulation, not prohibition.”
WSWA, which hosted the event, has been closely monitoring federal hemp policy developments, and the association was among the first in the sector to call on Congress to dial back language in the now-enacted law set to ban most consumable hemp products, while proposing to maintain the legalization of naturally derived cannabinoids from the crop and only prohibit synthetic items.
Other major alcohol retailers came together in January to encourage Congress to delay the enactment of the law Trump signed that will federally recriminalize hemp-derived THC beverages and other products.
The coalition says it wants to apply the same regulatory structure that governs beverage alcohol producers, distributors and merchants to hemp drinks “to ensure safe, transparent access.”
A GOP lawmaker, Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN), attempted to put a one-year delay on the implementation of the hemp recriminalization policy through an amendment to the 2026 Farm Bill that’s scheduled for a committee markup on Tuesday. But the chairman of that panel said he believes the amendment is not germane to the underlying legislation, so a vote is unlikely.
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Delaying the THC ban by a year would serve as a temporary bridge for the industry as it works to convince Congress to regulate—rather than recriminalize—hemp products, and it’s a shorter delay than Baird is working to secure through separate standalone legislation he filed this session that would put a pause on the policy change for two years to give stakeholders more time to navigate the issue.
Since 2018, cannabis products have been considered legal hemp if they contain less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis.
The provisions set to take effect later this year specify that, within one year of enactment, the weight will apply to total THC—including delta-8 and other isomers. It will also include “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals as a tetrahydrocannabinol (as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services).”
The new definition of legal hemp will additionally ban “any intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products which are marketed or sold as a final product or directly to an end consumer for personal or household use” as well as products containing cannabinoids that are synthesized or manufactured outside of the cannabis plant or not capable of being naturally produced by it.
Legal hemp products will be limited to a total of 0.4 milligrams per container of total THC or any other cannabinoids with similar effects.
Within 90 days of the bill’s enactment, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies were supposed to publish list of “all cannabinoids known to FDA to be capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa L. plant, as reflected in peer reviewed literature,” “all tetrahydrocannabinol class cannabinoids known to the agency to be naturally occurring in the plant” and “all other known cannabinoids with similar effects to, or marketed to have similar effects to, tetrahyrocannabinol class cannabinoids.”
However, FDA appears to have missed that deadline. A spokesperson told Marijuana Moment last month that the lists would be posted in the Federal Register when they’re available.
Lawmakers from across the aisle have been raising concerns about the potential consequences of the hemp redefinition, which would eradicate most consumable cannabinoid products that have become commonplace in states across the U.S., including those where marijuana hasn’t been legalized.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell are among the critics of the ban, and they sent a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) last month imploring him to use his influence to avert the recriminalization, at least on a temporary basis, by supporting the proposed implementation delay.
While McConnell championed hemp legalization under the 2018 Farm Bill, however, the former Senate majority leader has supported unraveling the hemp THC market that he’s described as an unintended consequences of the broader agriculture legislation.
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