Congress voted to ban most hemp-derived products last month in a last-minute addition to the spending bill that ended the government shutdown. The ban, set to be enforced in November 2026, will change the pricing, availability and composition of some of the most popular hemp-derived products on the market, like CBD tinctures and balms and THC drinks.
Here’s what you need to know.
Will I still be able to buy some hemp-derived products?
It depends on what state you live in. Jonathan Miller, general counsel for US Hemp Roundtable, says that states that have passed laws to allow regulated, legal hemp, the market will probably continue to operate similarly to state-level recreational and medical cannabis markets.
“States have got marijuana programs that are federally illegal and they still sell products. So that will continue,” he said.
As the law stands now, hemp is defined as any product derived from plants containing less than 0.3% delta 9 THC, while recreational and medical cannabis products that are exclusively available in state licensed dispensaries can contain any amount of delta 9 THC. If the ban goes into effect as written, legal hemp products will be redefined so that they can contain only 0.4 mg of any kind of THC per package – a trace amount that is found in most hemp-derived products, including those whose main component is CBD.
THC
For states that have passed their own hemp regulations, like Minnesota, Kentucky and Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, Tennessee, New York and Illinois, Miller believes those markets will continue to exist but in a much more limited form.
“The problem is there’ll be no more interstate commerce,” Miller said, meaning it will no longer be possible to ship hemp products from one state to another, and online sales will be much more restricted.
Read the full article at The Guardian
