The Farm Bill is reauthorized and amended every five years. It was language in the 2018 Farm Bill that opened the floodgates to offerings such as delta-8 THC becoming commercially available. Now, these attorneys general want that language changed rather drastically. The 2018 Farm Bill, extended last November, is now set to expire this September as lawmakers work on a new version of the bill.
The letter was signed by officials in Indiana, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C. The letter was written, they said, to call attention to a “crisis issue impacting our states, our public safety and our role as law enforcement officials.”
“As Congress prepares to embark on a new five-year reauthorization of the Farm Bill, we strongly urge your committees to address the glaring vagueness created in the 2018 Farm Bill that has led to the proliferation of intoxicating hemp products across the nation and challenges to the ability for states and localities to respond to the resulting health and safety crisis,” the letter read.
Also in the letter, the AGs state that the Farm Bill seemed clear in its intentions at the time: reintroducing industrial hemp as an agricultural commodity, while maintaining existing federal prohibitions on cannabis products and their use. However, the letter said “bad actors” have exploited the bill’s definition of hemp.
The 2018 Farm Bill defines hemp as “the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of that plant, including the seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.” It also removed hemp and hemp seeds from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of controlled substances.“These copycat hemp products place children at exceptional risk." – attorneys general letter
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Texas and several other states define hemp almost identically.
As a result, states have been flooded with intoxicating hemp products, which the letter describes as nothing less than a more potent form of cannabis. The letter also claims that these products are often sold in candy form, attractive to youth and children, and that they tend to come with “staggering levels of potency, no regulation, no oversight, and a limited capability for our offices to rein them in.”
The current definition of hemp has led to exploitation as far as the state officials are concerned. For example, when applied to foods, the 0.3% delta-9 THC limit that distinguishes hemp from marijuana isn’t adequate to distinguish the potential for intoxication. It is true that under the 0.3% delta-9 rule, manufacturers can make edible products that will get users high. “The result that has been seen is excessively potent products that are manufactured under fewer controls than in states that have legalized cannabis,” the letter said.
All of this ambiguity created by the 2018 Farm Bill has opened up a huge gray market of an estimated $28 billion. The letter noted that many states now face poisonings from poorly manufactured products with misleading labels, and consumption by people under 21.
Some 104 reports of adverse events in patients who consumed delta-8 were received by the Food and Drug Administration between Dec. 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2022. About 8% of those involved patients younger than 18 years old. National poison control centers received 2,363 delta-8 exposure cases between Jan. 1 2021, and Feb. 28, 2022. More than 40% involved users younger than 18.
The letter also claims that illicit suppliers have started “co-opting” legitimate brand names and packaging to sell intoxicating candy, snacks and cereal that may confuse consumers. “These copycat hemp products place children at exceptional risk,” the letter said.
The attorneys general recommended that regulation of these products happen at the state level. “The definition of hemp should be amended to clarify that there is no federal hemp intoxicants loophole, and the 2023 reauthorization should reaffirm that members of Congress do not intend to limit states in restrictions or regulations related to cannabinoids or any other derivatives of hemp which are deemed intoxicating,” they wrote.
Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told the Observer the letter makes a few good points. He concedes that there is a lack of regulation that needs to be addressed, products are being marketed to children and children have been able to get their hands on these products.
“But their solution’s the wrong one,” Miller said. “We need regulation. We need the FDA to come in and start regulating hemp products like they promised they would five years ago. The answer is not a prohibition or changing the definition of hemp in a federal law to ban these products.”
Miller thinks it’s unlikely that the law will be changed to ban all of these products. “But there's a possibility, and so we need to be very vigilant, and that's why we're getting the word out,” he said.
The roundtable is urging citizens to reach out to their representatives in Congress to ask them to protect the current definition of hemp and to implement fair regulations that focus on safety and responsibility, particularly when it comes to children. There’s a form on the roundtable’s website to help people do this.
Jesse Williams, a writer for the Fort Worth nonprofit and news site Texas Cannabis Collective, told the Observer that depending on how the new Farm Bill is written, it could have effects on the state.
If intoxicating hemp products were banned outright, for example, “It would be rescheduling the substances and Texas would likely comply promptly,” Williams said. “It would collapse the Texas market and result in a noticeable economic dip as many farmers, retailers and even labs are all in with their lives on this commodity.”
