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Hemp industry divided over Senate-approved changes to federal regulations

The chairman of the National Hemp Association says legislation included in the agriculture funding bill passed this week by the U.S. Senate rewrites the 2018 farm bill’s provision on hemp.

Geoff Whaling says the measure would end the unregulated sale of hemp-based products and return the focus to hemp grain and fiber production.

“There were some people who decided that they could take some of the minor cannabinoids and turn them into a product that had THC in it under the guise of this being USDA approved.”  He says, “This legislation really has closed that loophole.”

The bill overrides 23 state laws and limits allowed cannabinoid levels in products to well below current thresholds. Whaling tells Brownfield that the legislation’s effects would take effect a year after it’s signed into law.

“Which gives those people who are in this industry the ability to clean up their act, get rid of those products, and then start to move forward on the legal, legitimate, regulated hemp products,” he says.

He says the year window could offer opportunities to re-establish a legitimate cannabinoid market.

“But under a framework where cannabinoids should be, and that is under the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House and the Senate, which has oversight of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration),” he says.

Opponents of the bill say the regulations are too strict and essentially wipe out a $28 billion industry. 

In a statement to Brownfield, Rachel Berry, president of the Illinois Hemp Growers Association (IHGA), says, “The IHGA and its members are disappointed in the Senate-approved Continuing Resolution language that devastates the hemp industry, particularly small producers, and prioritizes special interests over agricultural innovation and family farms.”

The funding resolution awaits a vote in the U.S. House, which could take up the measure as early as Wednesday afternoon.

AUDIO: Geoff Whaling – National Hemp Association