Rand Paul warns McConnell-backed provision will regulate hemp industry ‘to death’

Almost all of Kentucky’s hemp crop is grown for cannabinoids, not fiber

By Jennifer Shutt \ Kentucky Lantern

WASHINGTON — Kentucky’s two U.S. sen­a­tors sparred this week over the future of the country’s hemp indus­try — one argu­ing that a pro­vi­sion attached to the pack­age that will reopen the gov­ern­ment will close a prob­lem­at­ic loop­hole and the oth­er con­tend­ing the lan­guage will reg­u­late the indus­try “to death.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell ulti­mate­ly pre­vailed and was able to keep the sec­tion in the Agriculture appro­pri­a­tions bill crack­ing down on hemp that Sen. Rand Paul tried to remove dur­ing floor debate. Both are Republicans.

The appro­pri­a­tions bill is rid­ing along with a stop­gap spend­ing bill that will end the gov­ern­ment shut­down and is expect­ed to be vot­ed on by the House as soon as Wednesday. The hemp mea­sure has raised alarm in farm states ben­e­fit­ing from a robust hemp grow­ing industry.

Cannabis cul­ti­vat­ed as hemp has 0.3% or less of tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol, or THC, while plants cul­ti­vat­ed as mar­i­jua­na have high­er con­cen­tra­tions of that sub­stance, which is what gives users the “high or stoned” feeling.

A sum­ma­ry of the bill put togeth­er by Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins’ staff says the new lan­guage would pre­vent “the unreg­u­lat­ed sale of intox­i­cat­ing hemp-based or hemp-derived prod­ucts, includ­ing Delta‑8, from being sold online, in gas sta­tions, and cor­ner stores, while pre­serv­ing non-intox­i­cat­ing CBD and indus­tri­al hemp products.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a warn­ing page on its web­site cau­tion­ing “that delta‑8 THC prod­ucts have not been eval­u­at­ed or approved by the FDA for safe use in any context.”

Farm Bill origins

McConnell explained he is tar­get­ing hemp because its uses have expand­ed beyond what was intended.

“I led the effort to legal­ize indus­tri­al hemp through the 2014 pilot pro­gram and the 2018 Farm Bill,” McConnell said. “Unfortunately, com­pa­nies have exploit­ed a loop­hole in the 2018 leg­is­la­tion by tak­ing legal amounts of THC from hemp and turn­ing it into intox­i­cat­ing sub­stances, and then mar­ket­ing it to chil­dren in can­dy-like pack­ag­ing and sell­ing it in eas­i­ly acces­si­ble places, like gas sta­tions and con­ve­nience stores all across our country.”

McConnell said the new pro­vi­sion, which won’t take effect until a year after the bill becomes law, would “keep these dan­ger­ous prod­ucts out of the hands of chil­dren while pre­serv­ing the hemp indus­try for farmers.”

Paul and Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley urged their col­leagues to remove that McConnell pro­vi­sion from the larg­er spend­ing pack­age, but were unsuccessful.

“This is the most thought­less, igno­rant pro­pos­al to an indus­try that I’ve seen in a long, long time,” Paul said.

The new lan­guage would change the def­i­n­i­tion of what makes a hemp plant legal, a move Paul said would mean “every plant in the coun­try will have to be destroyed.”

“This bill’s per-serv­ing THC con­tent lim­it would make ille­gal any hemp prod­uct that con­tains more than point four mil­ligrams,” Paul said. “That would be near­ly 100% of the exist­ing mar­ket. That amounts to an effec­tive ban, because the lim­it is so low that the prod­ucts intend­ed to man­age pain or anx­i­ety will lose their effect.”

State laws said to be nullified

The leg­is­la­tion, Paul added, will neg­a­tive­ly impact the near­ly two dozen states that have set high­er lim­its on hemp production.

“Currently, Maine lim­its THC to three mil­ligrams per serv­ing. That will be over­ruled. My home state lim­its THC to five mil­ligrams in bev­er­ages; that will be over­ruled. Minnesota, Utah, Louisiana also have five mil­ligrams per serv­ing. Alabama and Georgia have 10 mil­ligrams. Tennessee has 15 mil­ligrams,” Paul said. “The bill before us nul­li­fies all these state laws.”

Merkley said the new pro­vi­sion in the larg­er spend­ing pack­age would elim­i­nate the hemp indus­try, which Congress took steps to estab­lish more than a decade ago.

“I sup­port my oth­er col­league from Kentucky who doesn’t want intox­i­cat­ed prod­ucts pro­duced from hemp,” Merkley said. “But the def­i­n­i­tion that is in this bill does far more than that, and it has to be fixed. So for now, it needs to be stripped out.”

The Senate vot­ed 76–24 to table, or set aside, Paul’s amend­ment after McConnell moved to block it from being tak­en up directly.

The Agriculture fund­ing bill is one of three full-year gov­ern­ment spend­ing bills includ­ed in the stop­gap spend­ing pack­age that will end the gov­ern­ment shut­down once the House approves the mea­sure lat­er this week and President Donald Trump signs the bill.

Kentuckians dismayed 

Two Kentucky busi­ness own­ers who sell hemp-derived prod­ucts voiced dis­may at what the pro­vi­sion could mean for the state’s hemp industry.

Dee Dee Taylor, pres­i­dent of the Kentucky Hemp Association, said the McConnell pro­vi­sion would destroy her busi­ness, 502 Hemp, a retail­er of hemp-derived CBD and THC prod­ucts in Louisville.

“For them to cut this indus­try down while the whole coun­try is already down is absolute­ly insane, and I hope that every leg­is­la­tor los­es their job in the next cycle,” Taylor said.

Taylor said hemp-derived prod­ucts should be reg­u­lat­ed sim­i­lar to alco­hol and tobac­co prod­ucts with pur­chas­es lim­it­ed to peo­ple 21 or old­er. “These prod­ucts have nev­er killed anyone.” 

Taylor spoke out ear­li­er this year against a Kentucky bill that would have tem­porar­i­ly banned the sale of intox­i­cat­ing hemp-derived bev­er­ages in the state. The bill, spon­sored by Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R‑Louisville, was lat­er revised to remove the ban and instead reg­u­late such bev­er­ages sim­i­lar to alco­hol, along with putting a lim­it on the amount of THC in each beverage. 

Iowa and Maryland have also reg­u­lat­ed and restrict­ed THC-infused drinks, while law­mak­ers in a num­ber of oth­er states have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late such beverages.

“Let the adults make the deci­sions if they want to use it or not. We already have those reg­u­la­tions in Kentucky. Why not make them coun­try­wide?” Taylor said.

Jim Higdon, the own­er of Cornbread Hemp, which sells seltzer bev­er­ages infused with hemp-derived THC, blamed the influ­ence of the alco­hol indus­try for the recent scruti­ny on such beverages.He said hemp-derived bev­er­ages are pop­u­lar, while alco­holic bev­er­age sales are declin­ing. 

“Alcohol man­u­fac­tur­ers want us dead,” Higdon said.

With the pro­vi­sion not going into effect until a year after the law is passed, Higdon said hemp farm­ers would need to get clar­i­ty as well over whether plant­i­ng a hemp crop is legal. 

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture reports that this year Kentucky had 160 licensed hemp grow­ers and 40 processors/handlers in 60 of the state’s 120 coun­ties, har­vest­ing almost 4,700 acres. Flowers and cannabi­noids account for 97.5% of Kentucky hemp pro­duc­tion and fiber only 2%. In 2019, Kentucky had 978 hemp grow­ers, accord­ing to the Department of Agriculture, the high­est num­ber since the crop was re-legalized.

Trade group warns of hundreds of thousands of jobs affected

Hemp Industry & Farmers of America Executive Director Brian Swensen wrote in a state­ment released last week that McConnell’s pro­vi­sion would have a dev­as­tat­ing impact on the indus­try and its workers.

“Congress legal­ized hemp, Americans built an indus­try, and now Washington wants to pull the rug out from under hard­work­ing farm­ers and small busi­ness own­ers. The indus­try wants a sol­id reg­u­la­to­ry pack­age that pro­tects kids, but instead, Congress wants to place indus­try-killing caps on cannabi­noids. Congress is not lis­ten­ing to the indus­try they cre­at­ed — they’re dis­man­tling an indus­try with over 325,000 jobs and dri­ving con­sumers to an unreg­u­lat­ed, unsafe, and untaxed black market.”

Reporter Liam Niemeyer con­tributed to this story.