By Eben Sumner

A review of Section 781’s rewrite of the federal hemp definition, the competing legislative responses—the Lawful Hemp Protection Act, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, Representative Mace’s repeal bill, and Senator Wyden’s Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act—the CMS pilot expanding Medicare access to CBD products, and the separate marijuana rescheduling process now underway.

Taken individually, each has a rationale. Taken together, they describe a federal government regulating cannabis and hemp in several directions at once, with no framework connecting them.

The argument here is that Congress should regulate products by what they become and the risk they present, not by an increasingly strained definition of what plant they came from.

In 2018, Congress legalized hemp. Eight years later, Washington is still trying to decide what that means.

The straightforward part everyone remembers: hemp was an agricultural commodity, marijuana stayed a controlled substance, and a national cannabinoid market grew up around that line without a national regulatory framework to match it, with states, industry, and a slow-moving FDA filling the gaps as intoxicating products emerged that Congress never anticipated.

Now Washington is trying again.

Section 781, enacted on November 12, 2025, as part of the bill that ended the fall government shutdown, substantially rewrites the federal definition of hemp. Senator Mitch McConnell inserted the language late in the negotiations. Fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul fought it publicly on the floor, arguing it would “kill the hemp industry nationwide” and conflict with hemp laws already on the books in 20 states.

It passed anyway, without the standalone hearing hemp policy has traditionally gone through as part of a Farm Bill. It is scheduled to take effect November 12, 2026.

The Senate advanced a stopgap funding measure on a procedural vote August 3, 2026, then passed it 90-6 on August 8, 2026, as H.R. 6500. That bill would delay most Section 781 restrictions affecting naturally occurring hemp cannabinoids to December 11, 2026, though the exclusion of “non naturally occurring” cannabinoids would still take effect in November regardless.

As of this writing, it still needs House approval and the President’s signature, so the original November 12 date remains the operative one in law. The House’s own competing stopgap funds the government only through December 4 and says nothing about hemp, which makes House concurrence with the Senate’s hemp language an open question rather than a formality.

The bipartisan Lawful Hemp Protection Act, introduced by Representatives Andy Barr and Angie Craig as H.R. 9830 on July 22, 2026, offers a different approach and remains in committee. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, or CAOA, reintroduced in the Senate on July 16, 2026, approaches hemp as part of a much broader reconsideration of federal cannabis policy.

At the same time, the federal government has already moved part of marijuana to Schedule III and is deciding whether to move the rest, while CMS and FDA are experimenting with access to certain hemp-derived cannabinoid products using physician oversight and real-world evidence.

Taken individually, there is a rationale behind each of these actions. Put them next to one another, and federal cannabis policy becomes considerably harder to explain.

I’ve spent more than a decade working with cannabis and hemp from several perspectives: as a state-licensed medical cannabis cultivator and manufacturer, hemp cultivator and manufacturer, exporter and business owner, as well as a founding member and former president of a trade association, board member, and participant in multiple industry organizations.

I’ve watched policy develop from cultivation facilities and manufacturing labs as well as legislative hearings and advocacy efforts, in state, federal, and international regulatory frameworks.

One lesson has been remarkably consistent: never evaluate legislation by its press release.

Good legislation is measured on Monday morning, when a farmer decides what to plant, a laboratory decides how to test it, a manufacturer has to determine whether it can legally process it, and a regulator has to interpret what Congress actually wrote.

So rather than asking which of these proposals is best for the hemp industry, I think there is a more useful question:

Do they actually solve the problems Congress is trying to solve?

Congress Has a Legitimate Problem to Solve

There is no reason for the hemp industry to pretend everything that followed the 2018 Farm Bill was good policy.

(However, the free market devil on my shoulder says to raise the THC cap to 1% and allow for interstate and export commerce while we figure the rest out.)

Congress legalized hemp without creating a comprehensive framework for the consumer cannabinoid market that followed.

Products emerged that were poorly manufactured, inadequately tested, irresponsibly marketed and, in some cases, easily accessible to minors. Chemical conversion of cannabinoids expanded rapidly, some would say due to missing and irresponsible regulations forcing the lab’s hand. States adopted patchwork and conflicting rules. Interstate commerce became increasingly difficult to navigate.

Congress should address those problems.

Intoxicating products should have meaningful age restrictions. Products should be accurately labeled and tested through a foundation based on science and standards. Manufacturers should meet appropriate quality standards—appropriate being the key word. Contaminants, residual solvents and adulterants should not be acceptable simply because a product originated from hemp.

But regulation should correspond to the problem being regulated.

That is where Section 781 becomes difficult.

If the problem is unregulated intoxicating consumer products, why does the solution reach non-intoxicating full-spectrum products, ordinary manufacturing intermediates that consumers never encounter, and potentially the domestic infrastructure required to process American hemp?

Section 781 Regulates by Redefining

The mechanics of Section 781 matter because there isn’t one THC standard. There are different standards depending on where the material is in the supply chain.

At the plant level, hemp remains tied to a 0.3% total THC standard, including THCA, on a dry-weight basis.

Congress then separately addresses intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products: material being processed or intended to become another product. Those intermediates face a 0.3% combined threshold involving total THC and cannabinoids designated as having similar effects.

Finished products face something entirely different.

A final hemp-derived cannabinoid product containing more than 0.4 milligrams combined total per container of total THC and designated similar-effect cannabinoids no longer qualifies as hemp.

Not 0.4%.

Not 0.4 milligrams per serving.

Per container.

That distinction has enormous practical consequences.

A full-spectrum extract is designed to preserve naturally occurring components of the plant, including trace quantities of THC. A product does not have to be meaningfully intoxicating to contain more than 0.4 milligrams of THC across an entire bottle.

The method of measurement also produces a strange result. Two products could contain the same formulation at the same concentration and have different federal legal status simply because one is sold in a larger container.

If Congress is attempting to regulate intoxication, that raises a basic question:

Does total THC per package actually measure intoxicating risk?

Dose, concentration, serving size, and route of administration matter. The number of milligrams someone actually consumes certainly matters.

The physical size of the package is a much less obvious measure of pharmacological risk.

Congress itself appears to have recognized some uncertainty here because FDA was instructed to provide additional specificity concerning what constitutes a “container,” along with classifications of cannabinoids that occur naturally, THC-class cannabinoids, and cannabinoids considered or marketed as having similar effects.

Those definitions were due within 90 days of enactment, by February 10, 2026.

FDA missed that deadline. The Congressional Research Service confirmed in a late May 2026 report that the required lists still had not been published. As of this writing, more than six months past the statutory deadline, they still haven’t been.

That is not a minor administrative detail. Those classifications help determine what the statute actually regulates.

Eight years after the Farm Bill, we are once again facing a federal cannabinoid law whose implementation depends on regulatory clarity that has not arrived.

The Beverage Aisle Shows the Math in Practice

Nowhere is the per-container problem easier to see than in a can of hemp-derived THC beverage.

A standard can typically carries somewhere between 5 and 10 milligrams of total THC. Section 781’s finished-product limit is 0.4 milligrams per container.

That is not a close call or a product formulated to skirt a boundary. It is an entire, well-established retail category sitting roughly 12 to 25 times over the federal limit as a matter of ordinary formulation.

The category is not small.

Whitney Economics’ U.S. THC Beverage Report put legal U.S. THC beverage sales at $1.0 to $1.3 billion in 2024 across roughly 500 to 750 brands nationally, with chief economist Beau Whitney estimating a conservative total potential market of $9.9 to $14.9 billion once the category matures.

By early 2025, hemp beverage companies reportedly occupied close to 10 percent of the floor space at the wine and spirits industry’s own annual trade show.

Kentucky, Senator McConnell’s own state, permits hemp-derived THC beverages up to 5 milligrams of THC per serving under its alcohol regulator, roughly 12 times his own federal proposal’s per-container ceiling.

Whatever Section 781 is meant to accomplish, it is not obviously tracking what the senator’s own state considers an acceptable dose.

A bipartisan response has already emerged.

Representatives Beth Van Duyne and Greg Landsman introduced the Beverage Regulatory Parity Act, H.R. 10079, on August 10, 2026, to build a specific federal framework for hemp-derived THC beverages: a 5-milligram-per-serving limit on intoxicating THC, TTB permitting rather than FDA’s hemp framework, and a proposed federal excise tax of 8 cents per milligram—regulated and taxed more like alcohol than like an undifferentiated hemp product.

The bill is endorsed by the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, and that endorsement is worth sitting with.

It would be easy to assume the alcohol industry wants hemp beverages banned outright—one less competitor for the same shelf space.

Distributors told Congress close to the opposite: that demand for alcohol has shifted downward in recent years, that hemp products have driven new investment and jobs, and that prohibition would simply push the category into unregulated channels rather than eliminate it.

They offered their own history of regulating alcohol as a model for regulating this instead of banning it.

That is a useful data point on its own terms.

The interest group most people would assume wants this market gone is lobbying to keep it legal and regulated.

Never evaluate legislation, or the people it affects, by the press release you’d expect them to write.

The Bigger Problem May Be What Happens Before the Bottle Exists

Most public discussion of Section 781 focuses on products consumers purchase.

Manufacturers have a different problem.

Before there is a tincture, capsule or topical, someone has to turn the plant into an ingredient.

Extraction is a concentration process. Biomass becomes crude extract. Crude may be refined into distillate. Distillate may be further purified or separated.

Each step removes plant material while concentrating cannabinoids.

That is not an unintended consequence of extraction.

It is the purpose of extraction.

Importantly, Congress did not overlook this stage. Section 781 expressly defines an intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid product and then excludes intermediates that exceed its 0.3% combined cannabinoid threshold.

That creates a remarkable manufacturing problem.

A farmer can grow a federally lawful hemp crop. An American processor can legally purchase that crop. The processor can begin extracting it.

Then the material can stop being hemp because the processor successfully concentrated the cannabinoids contained in the lawful plant.

This isn’t merely theoretical.

Casco Bay Hemp’s own production records provide a useful real-world example. We reviewed four independently tested batches of full-spectrum CBD distillate produced across 2025 and 2026. Two were tested by Nova Analytical and two by MCR Labs.

Their measured THC concentrations were approximately 2.27%, 3.49%, 3.61% and 4.02%.

Every sample was dramatically above Section 781’s 0.3% intermediate threshold, ranging from approximately 7.6 to 13.4 times that limit.

These were not THC concentrates disguised as hemp products. They were CBD-dominant full-spectrum distillates containing approximately 67% to 79% CBD, along with naturally occurring minor cannabinoids.

Four production samples from one manufacturer do not establish an industry-wide statistical distribution, and they shouldn’t be represented that way.

But they illustrate the chemistry involved remarkably well.

The THC wasn’t added.

It was concentrated along with the rest of the plant’s cannabinoid profile.

That leaves Congress with a question that needs an answer:

How does an American processor legally turn compliant cannabinoid hemp into full-spectrum extract if the normal intermediate created during extraction is no longer hemp?

The Economic Consequence Doesn’t Stop at the Extractor

This is where Section 781 stops being merely a cannabinoid policy issue and starts becoming an industrial policy issue.

The most recent comprehensive national accounting of this industry, Whitney Economics’ U.S. National Cannabinoid Report, put total hemp-derived cannabinoid market demand at more than $28 billion, supporting roughly 328,000 jobs and $13 billion in wages, for a total economic impact in excess of $79 billion once indirect and induced activity is included.

That report is dated October 2023; it is the most recent national figure of its kind this review could independently verify, and it should be read as a floor rather than a current snapshot.

Even as a floor, it describes an industry too large to treat its restructuring as an afterthought.

American hemp processors and manufacturers have spent years investing in extraction equipment, laboratories, trained chemists and technicians, quality systems, analytical testing, process development and, in some cases, expensive GMP infrastructure.

Congress encouraged the development of that industry when it legalized hemp in 2018.

If the new definition makes ordinary domestic extraction legally impractical, the demand for compliant cannabinoid ingredients doesn’t necessarily disappear.

Assuming a lawful downstream hemp market continues, manufacturers will still need raw materials.

They simply may not be able to obtain them from American extractors.

One theoretical solution would be processing outside the United States. Agricultural material could leave the country, be refined overseas until it meets whatever standard is required for lawful U.S. entry, and return as a compliant ingredient for domestic manufacturing.

That is not the same as importing prohibited full-spectrum distillate. Any material entering the United States would still have to satisfy applicable U.S. law.

It is also an economically absurd supply chain.

Hemp biomass and flower are relatively bulky agricultural materials. The logical place to process biomass is reasonably close to where it is grown: extract the valuable compounds, reduce the mass and volume, and transport the concentrated ingredient.

Sending agricultural material overseas to perform a manufacturing process American companies already have the equipment, personnel and expertise to perform, only to import the resulting ingredient back, turns that logic upside down.

It also exports the value-added portion of the supply chain.

American farmers could grow the crop. American companies could formulate compliant finished products. American consumers could purchase them.

But foreign processors could capture the extraction revenue in between.

Domestic extraction businesses lose customers. Farmers lose domestic processors. Specialized jobs disappear. Capital investments become stranded. Laboratories lose demand. American manufacturers become more dependent on foreign suppliers, while process knowledge and future cannabinoid innovation have another incentive to migrate overseas.

Some American extraction companies have spent substantial sums improving manufacturing controls precisely because regulators and sophisticated customers demanded higher standards, especially in the global hemp economy.

Punishing that investment by making the underlying process impossible is difficult to reconcile with a policy supposedly intended to improve product safety.

If Congress intends to eliminate domestic cannabinoid extraction, it should debate that economic decision openly.

If it does not, Section 781 needs a workable treatment of legitimate in-process material.

Then There Is “Manufactured Outside the Plant”

Another phrase deserves considerably more attention.

Section 781 addresses cannabinoids capable of occurring naturally in cannabis but that are “synthesized or manufactured outside the plant.”

The likely concern is understandable. The post-2018 market produced chemically converted cannabinoids and products that lawmakers never contemplated when they legalized hemp.

But statutory language has to survive beyond legislative intent.

What does manufactured mean?

• Chemical conversion?
• Biosynthesis?
• Fermentation?
• Isolation?
• Chromatography?
• Distillation?
• Purification?
• Extraction itself?

If Congress means converting CBD into delta-8 THC, it can write that.

If it means synthesizing a naturally occurring cannabinoid from another precursor, it can write that too.

Using a broad term and leaving regulators or courts to determine its boundary later creates precisely the uncertainty federal legislation should be eliminating.

There is also a scientific distinction worth preserving.

A novel compound that does not naturally occur in cannabis presents a different regulatory question from a naturally occurring molecule produced through another manufacturing method.

That does not mean synthesized cannabinoids should escape regulation.

Identity, purity, residual solvents, contaminants and manufacturing quality matter enormously.

But origin alone does not answer all of those questions.

The molecule, the process, the impurities, the dose and the intended use all matter.

At least one hemp industry attorney has already concluded that fermentation-derived cannabinoids fall inside the prohibition, reasoning that the exclusion language is broad enough to reach them regardless of production method.

Whether regulators, courts or Congress ultimately agree is an open question.

That is precisely the kind of determination the statute assigned to FDA, and FDA, six months past its own deadline, still hasn’t made it.

Barr and Craig Start From a Different Place

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act approaches the problem differently.

Rather than beginning primarily with products that should cease being hemp, it begins with the existence of a lawful hemp-derived consumer marketplace and asks how that marketplace should operate.

That opens the door to the regulatory tools we already use elsewhere: manufacturing standards, testing, labeling, packaging, age restrictions and federal oversight.

That does not make every provision of the bill correct. It deserves the same scrutiny as Section 781.

Definitions can still create unintended consequences, agency authority can become overly broad, and compliance requirements can become disproportionately expensive for small businesses.

As of this writing, the bill has four cosponsors—Representatives Barr, Craig, Tim Moore and Marc Veasey—split evenly between the parties, and has been referred to four House committees without a hearing yet scheduled.

But the underlying philosophy is different.

Section 781 largely asks:

What should no longer be hemp?

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act asks:

How should hemp products be regulated?

Those aren’t semantic differences.

They are fundamentally different approaches to public policy.

The CAOA Makes the Picture Even More Complicated

The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act starts somewhere else again because its primary subject isn’t hemp, but cannabis.

Hemp becomes one component of a much larger attempt to restructure federal cannabis policy.

That broader approach has an advantage: it forces policymakers to confront the fact that hemp and marijuana are not different plant species.

Federal law created a legal distinction based primarily on cannabinoid content and then built two radically different regulatory systems around it.

The disadvantage is scope.

When legislation attempts to solve cannabis policy comprehensively, the specific needs of agriculture, cannabinoid manufacturing and low-risk hemp products can become secondary to the larger marijuana debate.

As of this writing, Senator Booker’s bill, S. 5022, carries 16 cosponsors, all Democrats, and has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee without further action since its July 16, 2026 introduction—a reminder that comprehensive reform and near-term hemp relief are moving on very different tracks.

Put Section 781, the Lawful Hemp Protection Act and CAOA next to one another and the disagreement becomes clearer.

Congress isn’t merely debating three ways to regulate hemp.

It is debating what hemp actually represents in federal law: an agricultural commodity, a consumer product category, a subset of cannabis, or some combination depending on what the plant becomes.

The Field Keeps Growing

Section 781, the Lawful Hemp Protection Act and CAOA are not the only proposals on the table, and the rest of the field sharpens the same two-question framework rather than complicating it.

Representative Nancy Mace’s American Hemp Protection Act, filed November 17, 2025, takes the simplest position of any of them: repeal Section 781 outright and let the pre-2025 hemp definition stand while states and industry self-regulation handle the rest.

Mace argues the restrictions were never properly debated.

Her early cosponsors, Thomas Massie, Zoe Lofgren and James Baird, span enough of the ideological map to make the point that opposition to how Section 781 passed is not confined to one party.

Senator Ron Wyden’s Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, introduced with Senator Jeff Merkley on December 10, 2025, sits closer to the Lawful Hemp Protection Act’s philosophy: don’t shrink the definition of hemp; regulate what’s sold under it.

It would set a 21-plus purchase age nationwide, require safety testing and truthful labeling, give FDA recall authority over products with excessive THC or dangerous additives, and set federal serving-size limits only where a state hasn’t already set its own, while leaving states free to regulate more strictly.

Line them up and the same divide from earlier in this piece holds.

Section 781 asks what should no longer be hemp.

Mace’s bill asks why Congress should get to redefine it out from under an existing industry in the first place.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act and the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act both ask how the products sold under that definition should be regulated.

Three additional bills, essentially two answers.

While Congress Restricts Hemp, Washington Is Experimenting With Cannabinoid Access

Then the story gets considerably stranger.

CMS launched that model on April 1, 2026.

The program’s $500 annual reimbursement goes to the prescribing physician rather than the patient, for doctor-recommended CBD products that meet defined THC limits, in oral form only, under a treating physician’s direction.

The design assumes physicians will pass some of that subsidy on to patients as an incentive to bring more of them into the program.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced the agency would loosen its enforcement posture for qualifying products rather than requiring each one to complete the conventional new drug approval pathway first.

That distinction matters.

The program is not simply Medicare declaring non-FDA-approved CBD products to be approved medicines, nor is Medicare simply reimbursing them as conventional prescription drugs.

It includes THC limits, physician involvement and product testing requirements.

Most importantly for this discussion, the federal government is deliberately interested in real-world evidence.

That has created understandable frustration among pharmaceutical developers.

MMJ International Holdings, which is developing cannabinoid therapies for Huntington’s disease and multiple sclerosis through FDA’s botanical drug pathway, sought a federal injunction to block the CMS pilot before it launched, arguing CMS bypassed normal notice-and-comment rulemaking and created what its complaint characterized as a fast lane for retail-grade cannabinoid products while companies still following the conventional approval process bear the cost and time that process requires.

The pilot launched on schedule regardless, and the district court later dismissed MMJ’s suit on standing grounds, without reaching those arguments, holding that a company without a product already on the Medicare market lacked standing to challenge the program favoring one.

MMJ appealed to the D.C. Circuit on June 5, 2026, arguing the standing ruling itself creates a troubling precedent: a company that followed the conventional approval process is denied judicial review specifically because it followed that process rather than skip it.

The appeal remains pending.

From MMJ’s perspective, companies were told there was a door: clinical development, FDA review and approval.

They are still walking through it.

Then another part of the federal government appeared to open a different one, and when they went to court about it, they were told they hadn’t walked far enough through the first door to have standing to complain about the second.

Their frustration is understandable.

But the money a company invested complying with one regulatory pathway does not necessarily establish that the same pathway is appropriate for every cannabinoid product.

That is the more interesting policy question.

We already accept different evidentiary standards throughout federal regulation.

A pharmaceutical making disease-treatment claims faces a different burden than a food, cosmetic or dietary supplement. Medical devices have their own frameworks. Post-market surveillance and real-world evidence already play roles in regulatory science.

Randomized controlled clinical trials remain extraordinarily valuable.

They are also not the only source of useful information about human outcomes.

Observational data matters. Historical use matters. Adverse-event reporting matters. Pharmacovigilance matters.

Real-world evidence matters.

The appropriate evidentiary standard should depend partly on what a product is, what claims are being made, how it is used and what risks it presents.

The CMS/FDA experiment is interesting precisely because the federal government itself appears willing to explore that idea.

And Marijuana Is Moving in Yet Another Direction

At the same time, federal marijuana policy is already partway to Schedule III.

In April 2026, the Justice Department moved two specific categories—FDA-approved drug products containing marijuana and marijuana obtained under a state medical marijuana license—from Schedule I to Schedule III.

Everything else, including unlicensed marijuana crops and ordinary marijuana extracts, remains Schedule I.

A separate administrative hearing on whether to reschedule all marijuana concluded in July 2026 after eleven days of testimony, and the presiding judge, Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius, set an August 17 deadline for closing briefs.

Both sides filed on schedule, with DEA itself formally urging the judge to recommend Schedule III.

Judge Julius must now prepare a report and recommendation, after which the parties get 20 days to file exceptions before the record is certified to DEA Administrator Terrance Cole, who holds the final decision, with no announced timeline for either step.

The rescheduling process is distinct from hemp legislation, and a partial rule plus a pending administrative recommendation should not be confused with a final, comprehensive agency action.

But the direction of federal policy is relevant, and part of it has already moved.

The federal government is already treating some marijuana as a Schedule III substance while Congress simultaneously prepares to implement a hemp definition that removes many full-spectrum products from lawful hemp and creates serious questions about domestic extraction.

These aren’t technically contradictory legal proceedings. Different statutes, agencies and legal standards are involved.

But policy does not exist in isolated filing cabinets.

Put the pieces on the same table.

One part of Washington is narrowing hemp while another is considering broader medical recognition of marijuana. CMS and FDA are experimenting with controlled access to nontraditional hemp-derived products and real-world evidence. Congress has competing proposals for regulating cannabinoid products, and states continue operating their own cannabis systems.

Eventually these policies have to meet.

The question is whether anyone is designing the intersection.

We May Be Recreating the Problem We’re Trying to Solve

There is another potential consequence of Section 781 that should sound familiar, and it is no longer entirely hypothetical.

When a product stops qualifying as hemp federally, it doesn’t necessarily vanish from the marketplace.

States already regulate this category on wildly different terms.

Arkansas has banned most intoxicating hemp products outside licensed medical dispensaries.

Missouri’s governor signed a law in April 2026 restricting them to licensed marijuana dispensaries starting the same day Section 781 takes effect.

Virginia caps total THC at 2 milligrams per package, five times looser than the coming federal standard.

Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee regulate hemp beverages with their own per-serving milligram limits, well above 0.4 milligrams per container.

Kentucky’s is 5 milligrams per serving—the same state whose senior senator wrote the federal number.

Other states are still deciding, and Texas shows how messy that can get.

The Texas Supreme Court restored the state’s authority to treat manufactured Delta-8 as Schedule I in May 2026. The same day, a Travis County judge blocked the broader smokeable hemp ban, and that injunction still holds.

Then on August 3, 2026, hemp retailers filed a separate federal suit in the Southern District of Texas, arguing the ban violates the Farm Bill and the Commerce Clause.

Three courts, one unresolved question.

Florida’s legislature adjourned this year without resolving it.

That is roughly fifty different state answers to the same question, layered under one federal answer that most of them don’t match.

The result could become federal prohibition alongside state authorization, uncertain interstate commerce, conflicting regulatory requirements and enforcement heavily influenced by federal priorities.

Sound familiar?

In other words, Congress could close what it considers the hemp loophole and recreate a version of the marijuana problem, state by state, in real time.

After decades spent arguing about the consequences of conflicting federal and state cannabis laws, that would be an impressive circle to complete.

Maybe We’re Still Asking the Wrong Question

Jason Adelstone, a partner at Harris Sliwoski LLP who advises cannabis operators on federal and international regulatory compliance, makes the same central argument: federal cannabis policy should focus on the end product rather than drawing an increasingly arbitrary line between hemp and marijuana.

The more I read these proposals, the more I return to a much simpler example.

Potatoes.

A farmer grows potatoes.

Some become french fries.

Some become potato starch.

Some become vodka.

We don’t regulate the farmer as a distillery because the crop could become alcohol.

We regulate vodka as alcohol because of what the potato became.

The same logic applies to grapes, corn and barley.

Agricultural commodities have different end uses, and those end uses create different risks.

Hemp can become fiber, building material, animal feed, food, cosmetics, non-intoxicating cannabinoid products, intoxicating products or pharmaceuticals.

Those products don’t have the same purpose or the same risk.

They shouldn’t necessarily have the same regulatory framework.

Perhaps Congress has spent too much time asking:

What is hemp?

A better question may be:

What did we make from it?

AKA: Smart Policy

If the product is intoxicating, regulate intoxication.

If it is a pharmaceutical making therapeutic claims, regulate it appropriately as a drug.

If it is food, regulate it as food.

If it is an agricultural commodity, regulate the agricultural risks.

If it is an intermediate being processed inside a controlled manufacturing environment and never offered to consumers, regulate the manufacturing process rather than pretending the intermediate is a finished product.

That approach doesn’t mean less regulation.

In some categories, it may mean considerably more.

But it means regulation designed around the actual risk and intended use rather than asking one botanical definition to do the work of an entire regulatory system.

Section 781, the Lawful Hemp Protection Act, CAOA, Mace’s repeal bill and the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act each contain pieces of a future federal framework.

The CMS/FDA experiment and marijuana rescheduling process add still more pieces.

What is missing is evidence that anyone has assembled the whole puzzle.

Congress has an opportunity to correct legitimate problems created or exposed by the 2018 Farm Bill: intoxicating products without appropriate safeguards, youth access, inconsistent testing, irresponsible manufacturing, misleading labels and regulatory uncertainty.

Those problems deserve serious solutions.

But after eight years of uncertainty, replacing one imperfect framework with another that prohibits ordinary products, potentially disables domestic extraction, relies on overdue agency definitions and risks recreating federal-state conflict would be difficult to call progress.

Whatever Congress writes next should make sense to the farmer growing the crop, the scientist testing it, the extractor processing it, the manufacturer formulating it, the regulator enforcing the law and the consumer ultimately using it.

If those people cannot reasonably read the same statute and understand the same rules, Washington isn’t finished writing the law.

The post US Cannabis at a Crossroads appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

By Eben Sumner, Founder and CEO, Casco Bay Hemp

Editor’s note: The regulatory landscape described in this article reflects the status of federal law and pending legislation as of April 27, 2026. This is a fast-moving situation. Readers should verify current bill status before making business decisions.

On April 23, 2026, the United States federal government did two things that do not belong in the same sentence.

The Department of Justice, acting under a December 2025 executive order from President Donald Trump, issued a final order rescheduling FDA-approved marijuana products and state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. It was the most significant shift in federal drug policy in more than 50 years. Hours later, on the same day, the same president posted to Truth Social urging Congress to act quickly to preserve Americans’ access to full-spectrum CBD products.

“I am calling on Congress to update the Law to ensure that Americans can continue to access the full-spectrum CBD products they have come to rely on,” Trump wrote. “We must get this done RIGHT and FAST.”

I read that post from my facility in Biddeford, Maine, where we manufacture hemp-derived CBD products and export them to regulated markets on three continents. And I had one immediate thought: the president just called on Congress to fix a law he signed five months ago, while his party holds a supermajority in the same Congress he is asking to act, and while not a single one of the multiple legislative remedies already introduced has received so much as an invitation to the House floor.

That is not political commentary. That is the documented timeline of the current moment in U.S. cannabis policy, and it is the subject of this article.

We are operating inside a federal regulatory framework that is pulling the cannabis plant in two directions at once. One set of federal actions is moving to legitimize intoxicating marijuana under Schedule III, opening pathways for medical research, physician access and, eventually, fairer tax treatment for state-licensed operators. Another set of federal law, already signed and already on the clock, is on track to criminalize the vast majority of non-intoxicating hemp products, eliminate the supply chain that produces them and make it federally illegal to process hemp flower into crude oil. Those two trajectories are not the product of opposing parties. They are the product of one administration, one Congress and one extraordinary failure of legislative coherence.

The Rescheduling: Historic, Bounded and Not What You Think

The April 23 order is real, it matters and it has been overstated in almost every headline I have seen.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order placing two specific categories of marijuana into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The first category is drug products containing marijuana that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, this currently means a short list: Epidiolex, the CBD-based medication approved for treatment-resistant epilepsy, and Marinol and Syndros, which contain synthetic delta-9 THC and are prescribed for chemotherapy-related nausea and AIDS-related appetite loss. That is the full universe of FDA-approved marijuana products. The second category is marijuana that is subject to a qualifying state-issued license authorizing manufacture, distribution or dispensing for medical purposes only. A licensed medical dispensary in Maine, Colorado or any other state operating under a medical-only program qualifies. An adult-use recreational retailer operating legally under state law, but without a medical-specific license, does not. Recreational marijuana in every state, regardless of how well-regulated, remains Schedule I under this order.

That is it. The order covers naturally derived delta-9 THC and marijuana extracts, but only to the extent those substances are incorporated into an FDA-approved product or covered by a qualifying state medical license. Simultaneously, the DEA announced an expedited administrative hearing beginning June 29, 2026, to evaluate broader rescheduling of all marijuana. That hearing has a mandated conclusion date of July 15, 2026. What comes out of it, and when any resulting rule takes effect, remains an open question.

I want to be precise about what this rescheduling does and does not change, because the confusion in the market is real and it is costly.

What it changes: State-licensed medical marijuana entities can now register with the DEA using their existing state credentials, with the agency committed to processing early applications within six months. Entities that submit applications by June 22, 2026, may continue operating under state licenses while under review. This is meaningful for medical operators who have been navigating a patchwork of state legitimacy and federal illegality for more than a decade.

What it does not change: Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, which prohibits ordinary business deductions for companies trafficking in Schedule I or Schedule II substances, is not directly resolved by this order. The IRS has indicated guidance is forthcoming, but as of this writing, no transitional rules have been issued. State and local taxes are similarly unaffected. The order explicitly states that any form of marijuana other than in an FDA-approved product or under a state medical license remains Schedule I, and those handling such material remain subject to full federal criminal and civil sanctions.

What it does not touch at all: hemp. Not one word of the April 23 order addresses hemp, hemp-derived cannabinoids, CBD or the November 2026 deadline that is bearing down on my industry.

Section 781: The Law Nobody Debated

On Nov. 12, 2025, President Trump signed H.R. 5371, the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026. The bill ended a 42-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, and it ran well over a thousand pages. Buried in Division B, Section 781, was a single provision that rewrote the federal definition of hemp and set a one-year clock on the majority of hemp-derived cannabinoid products currently sold in the United States.

The provision was not publicly debated. It was not subject to committee markup. It passed because it was attached to legislation the government needed to stay open.

On Nov. 12, 2026, one year from enactment, the provision takes effect.

Section 781 makes three principal changes to federal hemp law.

First, it replaces the prior delta-9 THC threshold with a total THC standard. Hemp is now defined as cannabis with a total THC concentration, including THCA and delta-8 THC, of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis. The 2018 Farm Bill only measured delta-9 THC. This single change eliminates THCA flower from the legal hemp market, because THCA converts to delta-9 THC upon heating and any honest total THC test on high-THCA flower will exceed the new threshold.

Second, it imposes a ceiling of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container for finished hemp-derived consumable products intended for ingestion, inhalation or topical use. Not per serving. Per container.

Third, it excludes synthetic and converted cannabinoids from the hemp definition entirely.

Where the Supply Chain Actually Breaks

I am going to explain this from the inside.

When you extract cannabinoids from hemp flower, you produce crude oil. That crude concentrates all cannabinoids, including THC.

A hemp flower at 0.3% THC becomes crude at roughly 2% to 3% THC.

Under Section 781, that crude becomes a controlled substance the moment it is created.

There is no chemistry that avoids this.

What This Means

If Section 781 takes effect without amendment, the hemp-derived cannabinoid industry becomes federally unlawful.

Not at the shelf.

At the first step of production.

The Contradiction in Plain Terms

• Expanding access to marijuana
• Encouraging CBD use in healthcare
• While simultaneously eliminating the legal framework that allows CBD to exist

Final Thought

The plant is still the same plant.

Washington is the variable.

The post Two Laws, One Plant appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

What’s missing is alignment. For operators, manufacturers, investors, and international partners watching the U.S. market, the current moment feels less like progress and more like suspended animation. That pause is not neutral. It is already costing real money.

Two federal tracks are moving simultaneously; one affects hemp directly through statutory changes that have already been enacted and are set to take effect in November 2026. The other concerns marijuana rescheduling, which is back in motion but still bound by administrative process. Together, they are reshaping planning decisions well before any formal deadline arrives, whether the industry likes it or not.

The so called “hemp ban” is not a single prohibition, but its impact could be just as severe

What Congress passed in late 2025 through the “must pass” appropriations process was not formally labeled a ban, but a rewrite of what qualifies as legal hemp. While some have described the change as an attempt to target intoxicating hemp products, the language reaches far beyond that category. In practice, it encompasses the entire industry, including full-spectrum and non-intoxicating products that have long operated within existing legal and compliance frameworks.

Under the revised federal definition, finished hemp-derived products would be limited to no more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. This is not per serving. It is per package. At the same time, the statute expands the concept of “total THC” to include THCA and other THC-class cannabinoids, while excluding cannabinoids that are not naturally produced by Cannabis sativa L.

On paper, this may look like a consumer protection measure. In practice, it collides directly with how hemp manufacturing and supply chains actually work in the United States.

When companies produce CBD extracts, the first extraction begins with crude that naturally contains roughly three to four percent THC, depending on its source biomass. That material is (somewhat) compliant today because it is an intermediate input, not a finished consumer product, which is an important distinction. Under a per-container cap of 0.4 milligrams, that same “in-process hemp” becomes legally indefensible the moment it exists. The problem is not downstream formulation. The problem is that domestic extraction and therefore manufacturing itself becomes impossible.

The predictable result is not that cannabinoid products disappear. It is that U.S. extraction disappears. Manufacturers would be pushed toward importing THC free isolate or heavily remediated broad-spectrum inputs to remain compliant. That shift would strip the market of full spectrum chemistry, which is closer to the original plant biology, proven to have higher efficacy, and replace it with narrower, less complex formulations. The change would not be driven by science or safety. It would be driven by arithmetic.

The global implications are larger than many policymakers realize

The United States currently occupies a unique position in the global compliant market. It is effectively the only country that allows the lawful manufacture of specific, cannabinoid forward products focused on compounds such as CBG, CBN, CBC, THCV, and a slew of others. These formulations are not recreational novelties. They exist because U.S. law has, until now, allowed controlled experimentation with non intoxicating cannabinoids derived directly from the plant.
That freedom is what drives ingenuity. It is how better cannabinoid formulations are developed, refined, and standardized. If federal definitions eliminate these cannabinoids by classification or by impossible compliance thresholds, the loss is not limited to U.S. companies. The entire global compliant ecosystem loses its primary engine for cannabinoid innovation and patient treatment.

History is instructive here. Cannabis based medicine has existed for all of recorded history. Prohibition and over regulation have never eliminated it. They have only shifted it into less regulated, less transparent, and less safe markets. Policy that unintentionally erases compliant manufacturing does not remove demand. It removes oversight.

Congress is reacting, but time is the real constraint

The statutory effective date for the new hemp definition is November 13, 2026. That is the drop dead date. But markets do not wait for enforcement. Banking, insurance, planting contracts, and M&A timelines are already affected and adjusting.

In response, Congress has begun to introduce legislation aimed at slowing the fuse. The Hemp Planting Predictability Act, H.R. 7024, introduced in mid January 2026, would extend the implementation timeline by two additional years. The bill does not resolve the underlying policy debate. It does something more basic and more urgent: it buys time.

That time matters. It allows farmers to plant without guessing if this season’s crop will be legal at harvest. It allows manufacturers to plan capital expenditures without assuming worst case interpretations. It allows regulators and lawmakers to build an actual framework rather than letting definitions do the work of prohibition.

Delay is not a solution. But in a system that is already wobbling, it may be the difference between reform and collapse.

Marijuana rescheduling is moving again, but it is not a shortcut

Alongside the hemp debate, marijuana rescheduling has re-entered the conversation following a December 18, 2025 executive order directing the Department of Justice to complete the pending rule making process. However, the order does not itself reschedule cannabis, but instructs agencies to finish their work.
That distinction matters for business planning because rescheduling is not a single decision. It is a formal federal rulemaking process with multiple required steps, each of which introduces timing risk.

Based on the Controlled Substances Act rescheduling process, DEA’s rulemaking regulations, and the Federal Register record for the marijuana Schedule III proposal/hearing:

The rescheduling pathway, in practical order:

• Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): HHS completes the scientific and medical evaluation and transmits a scheduling recommendation. Its findings on medical and scientific matters are binding under the Controlled Substances Act, but they do not change scheduling on their own.
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): FDA and NIDA support HHS by providing scientific analysis and research context that form the evidentiary record for rescheduling.
• Department of Justice (DOJ) / Attorney General: DOJ initiates the formal scheduling rule making. Executive direction can accelerate priority, but statutory procedure cannot be bypassed.
• Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA): DEA conducts rule making by publishing a proposed rule, taking public comment, and determining whether an administrative hearing is required.
• Administrative Law Judge (ALJ): If a hearing is granted, an ALJ develops the record and issues recommended findings, adding durability but also time.
• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) / Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA): Significant rules typically undergo inter agency review before final publication.

Federal courts: Final rules are subject to judicial review, which can delay implementation through litigation.

Each step is mandatory. None can be skipped, and each adds procedural and timing uncertainty that markets price in well before any final rule takes effect.
Recently, industry concern about inaction has been met with public reassurance. Representative Dave Joyce, a Republican voice on cannabis policy, recently stated that he sees no reason to worry about the Justice Department dragging its feet or undermining the effort underway following the President’s directive. That confidence is notable. It does not, however, replace real timelines.

Rescheduling marijuana may ultimately ease certain tax and research barriers for that classification of the plant. But, it will not, by itself, have anything to do with the structural uncertainty facing hemp derived manufacturing.

There is some classification crossover with the Executive Order though.

Research pilots and federal agencies: signal, not structure

The same executive order directs coordination among the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the CMS Innovation Center. The goal is to improve research methods and real world evidence related to cannabis and hemp derived products.

This is meaningful as a signal. It is not yet a market pathway. No publicly posted CMS Innovation Center model, application process, or supplier framework currently exists.
Until it does, operators should treat pilot discussions as directional, not bankable.

Why waiting is already expensive

Institutional capital does not underwrite ambiguity. When statutory definitions are unresolved and agency interpretation remains unknown, financing pulls back. Insurance tightens. Banks grow quieter. M&A discounts widen. Planting is delayed. Manufacturing investment pauses.

None of this requires enforcement to begin. Uncertainty alone is enough.

This is why the narrative that “there’s still time” is misleading. There may be time on the calendar, but there is far less time in the market.

A practical call to action

This is not a moment for slogans. It is a moment for specificity.

If you operate in hemp, medical marijuana, or any adjacent supply chain, now is the time to contact your U.S. House Representative and both U.S. Senators and ask clear questions. Are they pursuing repeal, delay, or replacement of the current hemp definition changes? What is their plan to prevent a manufacturing cliff ahead of November 2026? How are they overseeing federal agencies to ensure that rushed definitions do not become de facto bans?

Clarity is not a partisan ask. It is a prerequisite for safe markets, compliant manufacturing, and responsible innovation.

Waiting may feel cautious. In this environment, it is not free.

The post Waiting Has a Cost: Where U.S. Hemp and Cannabis Policy Stands and Why It Matters Now appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

Last week, the United States saw the passage of some of the most damaging cannabis language since the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. It was quietly tucked into the FY26 Ag–FDA Appropriations legislation. As you may have already seen in the media and through various cannabis industry channels, the claim is that this bill was drafted to prohibit intoxicating hemp products. That part is certainly handled. But watch closely to see who calls this a “win,” because the bill does far more than that.

This language doesn’t just target intoxicating compounds — it carpet bombs the entire hemp industry, including non-psychoactive cannabinoids with proven therapeutic benefits and well-documented roles in supporting the endocannabinoid system through the entourage effect.

If this language is not replaced with smart, clear regulatory policy, Americans stand to lose regulated access to:

• CBD, because raw materials naturally contain quantifiable THC
• All THC and THC-like cannabinoids, effectively prohibited under the new definition
• Full-spectrum therapeutics, due to total-THC calculations
• CBN, for the same quantifiable-THC reason
• CBG, same issue

And if “quantifiable” is defined at the limit of detection (LOD) — which federal agencies have the authority to do — 90%+ of existing products become illegal overnight.

What the Industry Stands to Lose

The consequences go far beyond individual products. The industry risks losing:

• Interstate commerce protections
• 2018 Farm Bill protections
• The legal basis for extraction
• The legal basis for manufacturing
• Banking and insurance pathways
• DEA exemptions
• FDA tolerance for hemp derivatives
• This is not regulatory tightening. It is structural removal.

The Definition That Quietly Eliminates an Entire Industry

One of the most problematic pieces of Section 759 is the new definition of a “hemp-derived cannabinoid product”, how it relates to raw material production and finished product manufacturing:

“Any intermediate or final product derived from hemp (other than industrial hemp) that contains cannabinoids in any form and is intended for human or animal use through inhalation, ingestion, or topical application.”

The critical word here is “intermediate.”

In practice, this refers to the raw materials — the “in-process hemp” — that extractors produce and manufacturers depend on. This category has always existed in a legal gray area that allowed the industry to function. It wasn’t an oversight; it was a recognition of basic chemistry.

A typical first extraction from a compliant hemp flower (~12–14% CBD and below 0.3% THC in the field) produces CBD crude containing ~40–50% CBD and 2–3% THC. This crude is then remediated, distilled, or isolated into downstream raw materials such as full-spectrum distillate, broad-spectrum distillate, CBD isolate, and others.

Under the new language, because all forms of THC and THC-isomers must total below 0.4 mg per container, this standard first extraction becomes illegal. That one change alone eliminates the entire extraction sector and severely restricts manufacturing. If this takes effect, the only practical way to meet domestic demand would be to import compliant raw materials from foreign markets, drastically weakening U.S. producers and forcing consumers into less effective, reduced-entourage products.

From an economic standpoint, the U.S. hemp industry becomes an import-dependent market.

From a wellness standpoint, Americans — and the countries that import U.S. therapeutics — lose access to full-spectrum products that work precisely because of the entourage effect.

The “Similar Effects” Clause: An Open-Ended Ban

Adding insult to injury, another section of the language states the prohibition applies to: “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) as THC.”

This vague language becomes a regulatory sledgehammer. It opens the door to sweeping up cannabinoids such as:

• CBN, used in sleep formulations and mildly psychoactive only at extremely high doses
• THCV, therapeutic and appetite-modulating, mildly psychoactive in high doses
• Potentially others like CBC or acidic cannabinoids depending on interpretation

We’ve already seen this play out globally — the UK’s extremely low CBN cap, Japan’s current internal efforts to ban CBN entirely, etc.

This clause is broad enough to eliminate entire categories of therapeutics with no scientific justification.

This Analysis Only Scratches the Surface

There are multiple additional ways this language destabilizes — and in many cases eliminates — core parts of the hemp ecosystem. But at the highest level, the impact is clear:

• Businesses shutter
• Jobs vanish
• Innovation halts
• Domestic production collapses
• Full-spectrum therapeutic access disappears
• Foreign producers step in to fill the gap

All of this is avoidable with thoughtful, scientifically grounded language.

Next Steps – Beware

Apologies for the pessimistic outlook (I’m a realist), but the reality is that the next phase won’t be a calm, reasoned policy debate. It’s going to be a crowded field of well-financed interest groups trying to shape the landscape in ways that protect their own market share. Some of that will be intentional. Some of it will be buried under “safety,” “consistency,” and “standards” language that just so happens to double as a financial gate for everyone else.

This is why the industry — the whole industry — needs to lock in and work together. Not for hyper-specific carveouts that benefit one segment over another, but for smart, balanced, science-based policy that protects consumer access, protects small and mid-sized operators, and actually reflects how cannabinoid manufacturing works in the real world.

Every line of proposed language needs to be read with a fine-tooth comb. Not just for the obviously harmful parts, but for the subtle ones — the definitions, the thresholds, the vague clauses that look harmless on the surface but end up wiping out entire categories of products, businesses, or manufacturing processes. The consequences can be malicious or completely unintended, but the outcome is the same: more market consolidation, fewer choices, less innovation, and another step backward for a sector that has already survived more uncertainty than most people realize.

And above all, contact your representatives. Don’t assume someone else will do it. Don’t assume they already understand the stakes — they don’t. Tell them your story. Tell them why you use CBD or other hemp-derived therapeutics. Tell them why your health and wellness decisions are your own personal choice — and, frankly, a basic human right. Tell them how many Americans work in this industry, how many farms and manufacturers and retailers depend on clear policy, and how quickly those jobs disappear if Congress lets vague, overreaching language become law.

This is not the time for silence or fragmentation. The next year will determine what the next decade looks like.

If we work together, stay vigilant, and stay loud, we can ensure the U.S. moves toward a regulatory system that protects consumers and cultivates a healthy, competitive, innovative industry — not another version of prohibition dressed up as “progress.”

Eben Sumner
CEO
Casco Bay Hemp

The post U.S. Cannabis Prohibition 2.0 appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

The Industry Is on the Line

If passed, this proposal would collapse the supply chain and effectively re-criminalize one of America’s fastest-growing wellness sectors. Without raw material manufacturers, downstream products (tinctures, topical, edibles, and more), simply won’t exist.

What’s in the Bill and How Does it Play Out?

Right off the bat, this industry shuttering language is hidden within a broader funding package, which is shady policy at best, and it isn’t the first time it has been folded into an omnibus designed to pass with a majority.
One majorly damning part of the proposed text would alter the definition of hemp to exclude,
“any final product or intermediate hemp material that contains a cannabinoid created outside the plant or that exceeds the total THC limit.”

That means:

• Any processed cannabinoid, even if derived from hemp, could be labeled a Schedule I controlled substance.
• This essentially reschedules non-intoxicating minor cannabinoids as narcotics, directly challenging the descheduling of CBD in 2018 from the very same list.
• The free flow of raw cannabinoid materials across state lines would be eliminated.
• Licensed businesses would face sudden, crippling regulatory exposure.

This isn’t oversight; it’s an industry-wide ban in disguise that would erase an entire sector of American agriculture and wellness innovation.

Economic and Agricultural Impact

Hemp has become a cornerstone of rural revitalization and sustainable agriculture in the U.S.

• The U.S. hemp market surpassed $6 billion in 2024 and was projected to reach $28 billion by 2030.
• Thousands of family farms depend on hemp cultivation to stay solvent.
• The industry supports tens of thousands of jobs across farming, extraction, manufacturing, logistics, and retail.
• Any innovation is halted.

By redefining hemp so narrowly, Congress would eliminate legal hemp commerce while handing global market share to competitors in the EU, Canada, and Latin America. Each of these regions is rapidly expanding their cannabinoid research and export frameworks.

Scientific and Safety Context

Let’s be clear: cannabinoids “created outside the plant” are not synthetic street drugs.

They’re natural compounds — cannabinoids, terpenes, and acids — extracted and purified through controlled, scientific processes. The process is exactly how compounds in nature are isolated and repurposed through manufacturing in all household products, including pharmaceutical drugs.

Responsible manufacturers already use ISO/IEC 17025-certified labs, batch-level testing, and full compliance with state and federal regulations.

• These processes ensure consistency, safety, and traceability.
• They are the very safeguards that protect consumers from the black market.

Erasing this industry doesn’t protect public health — it destroys the systems that ensure it.

Regulatory and Legal Contradictions

This bill directly conflicts with the 2018 Farm Bill, which legally defined hemp as Cannabis Sativa L. with ≤0.3% Δ9-THC by dry weight.

The new proposal:

• Broadens THC to include “THC-like” cannabinoids with similar effects; an undefined, subjective category. Too ambiguous.
• Gives USDA and HHS open-ended authority to determine “quantifiable amounts,” potentially creating a zero-tolerance standard.
• Removes “in-process” hemp materials from protection, rendering manufacturing itself illegal.
• Violates the spirit of the Commerce Clause by blocking interstate trade of compliant hemp goods.

It’s a regulatory overreach that undermines years of bipartisan policy and investment.

Global Competitiveness and Innovation

While Congress moves backward, other nations are moving forward:

• The EU is expanding its Novel Foods authorizations.
• Brazil’s ANVISA is approving prescription cannabinoid imports.
• Canada and Thailand are scaling medical and wellness cannabinoid markets.
• More countries are liberalizing policy and coming online to join the global market place.

If this U.S. ban proceeds, innovation and capital will simply go offshore, taking American jobs, research partnerships, and intellectual property with them.

Hemp is much more than cannabinoids; it’s a climate-smart crop with applications in bio-remediation, sustainable materials, and carbon sequestration. Crippling this industry now is short-sighted at best, self-sabotaging at worst.

Political Context and Transparency

This damaging hemp language was inserted quietly, without stakeholder consultation, into a massive appropriations bill that is key in ending the history-making government shutdown. A shutdown that is not only blocking pay for government employees and military personnel, but also revolves around a standoff bill that is keeping families and children from SNAP benefits.

Yet, there are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who see the problem and are trying to fix it. Representatives like Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) have expressed support for fair hemp policy.

Consumers, patients, and business owners must act now to show Congress that this language doesn’t just tweak definitions, but kills an entire lawful industry.

What to Tell Your Representatives

When you contact your representatives, first ask to remove all hemp language from FY26 Agriculture/USDA/FDA spending bill, and then focus on these key problematic elements:

• Redefining the THC Threshold
• Moving from ≤0.3% Δ9-THC to a “total THC + similar cannabinoids” standard is unscientific and overreaching.
• Granting Undefined Authority to USDA/HHS
• “Quantifiable amounts” could mean anything — including a scientifically impossible zero tolerance policy.
• Banning Cannabinoids Made Through Safe Processing
• Excluding cannabinoids “synthesized or manufactured outside the plant” ignores legitimate, natural processes.
• Removing “In-Process” Material Protections – Without this allowance, manufacturers can’t legally process hemp into finished goods — the industry collapses overnight.

Make sure your message is clear: this isn’t about intoxicating THC products — it’s about preserving legal, non-intoxicating, health-oriented cannabinoids that millions rely on.

Act Now — Before It’s Too Late

If you value your right to access hemp-based wellness products, speak up now.
The House is expected to vote Wednesday at 4 PM EST.

Find and contact your Representatives and tell them to strike the hemp language that bans natural cannabinoids and dismantles lawful supply chains.
Highlight what is important: Protect patient access. Protect American jobs. Protect hemp innovation.

The Bottom Line

This fight is bigger than hemp, it’s about the future of natural health and wellness, sustainable agricultural freedom, and evidence-based policy in America.

The decisions made this week will decide whether the U.S. remains a leader in sustainable, plant-based innovation — or whether it hands the future of hemp to foreign markets and the illicit trade.

The time to act is now.

The post Urgent Alert: Congress Threatens the U.S. Hemp Cannabinoid Industry appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

Despite legalization across dozens of states, most marijuana-related businesses (MRBs) still navigate a financial landscape defined by overregulation and outdated federal policy. This latest report only reinforces this reality.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Treasury that collects and analyzes financial data to combat financial crimes, provides guidelines for the financial sector. FinCEN holds enormous power over cannabis banking because, despite state legalization, its guidance under federal law forces banks to treat marijuana-related businesses as high-risk, requiring extensive reporting that has effectively limited industry access to mainstream financial services.

What the FinCEN Report Says

FinCEN recently released updated data on cannabis-related Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). These filings are required of banks and credit unions that provide accounts or services to MRBs. In theory, SARs should highlight red flags—money laundering, fraud, or other illegal activity.

But the numbers tell a different story:

In 2024, FinCEN received roughly 3.8 million original SARs across all industries (closer to 4.5–4.6 million when including amendments and continuing activity), with crypto alone driving tens of thousands tied to over $90 billion in suspicious transactions involving fraud, hacks, and darknet markets.

By contrast, Marijuana-Related Business (MRB) SARs totaled only about 18,600 filings in Q4 2024, nearly 80% of which were “marijuana limited” reports that simply flag the customer as cannabis-related without alleging wrongdoing.

Only about 13% were “termination” SARs that could be considered real issues. This gap highlights the imbalance: while crypto and other high-risk industries generate SARs tied to large-scale, demonstrable illicit finance, the vast majority of cannabis filings are bureaucratic check-boxes—evidence that MRBs are being subjected to disproportionate regulation relative to actual risk.

The Burden on Cannabis Businesses; the Data Doesn’t Support Prescribed “Risk”

This data underscores what entrepreneurs in the cannabis space already know:

• Compliance costs are high.
• Access to capital is limited.
• Federal banking restrictions remain a daily barrier.

While community banks and credit unions have stepped up to fill some of the gap, larger institutions remain hesitant—driving up fees and forcing MRBs into fragile financial relationships.

The irony is clear. The vast majority of SARs show that cannabis businesses are operating compliantly within state law. Yet federal rules require banks to treat these customers as inherently suspicious. The result is an industry buried in compliance filings, not criminal activity.

Why This Matters

Overregulation doesn’t just slow business growth—it creates risk. Cash-heavy operations are more vulnerable to theft and less able to invest in expansion. For hemp and cannabis companies seeking to scale responsibly, outdated FinCEN guidance from 2014 is not just unhelpful—it’s harmful.

As the cannabis industry matures, federal agencies need to catch up. Redefining MRBs, streamlining reporting requirements, and providing clarity for financial institutions would reduce costs and improve safety. The data is in: MRBs are not the problem. The regulatory framework is.

Looking Ahead

At Casco Bay Hemp, we’ve built our business on compliance, transparency, and sustainability. We welcome smart regulation that protects consumers and ensures product quality. But rules that force banks to file meaningless reports and punish businesses that are playing by the rules, does nothing to advance public heatlh and safety.

The takeaway from FinCEN’s latest report is simple: it’s time to stop treating cannabis banking as a crime waiting to happen and start building a framework that reflects reality.

The post FinCEN’s Latest Cannabis Banking Report: Proof That MRBs Face Overregulation, Not Risk appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

This is the Casco Bay Hemp perspective—grounded in data, driven by common sense.

Cannabis by the Numbers: What the UN Report Actually Says

244 million people used cannabis in 2023, representing about 6% of adults aged 15–64. That’s up from 5.2% a decade ago. Even as enforcement escalates, cannabis use continues to rise. That’s a textbook failure of prohibition. Yet, regulators continue to double down.

Use Is Rising—While Prohibition Generates Zero ROI

UN data shows a 28% spike in global drug use over the past decade, with cannabis leading the surge.
Governments continue throwing billions at enforcement, courts, and incarceration—while consumers turn to unregulated products. Those funds could instead fuel research, wellness innovation, and tested, transparent hemp products. You have to wonder why it is so difficult for leadership to grasp regulation and see the harm in prohibition?

Realistic Thinking Countries Are Abandoning Outdated Policy

• The UN notes a growing “national divergence” in cannabis laws. That’s code for: “Countries are making their own rules now.”
• Germany and Malta have legalized cannabis.
• Canada launched adult-use cannabis nationally in 2018.
• Dozens of U.S. states now dominate search terms like “cannabis dispensary near me” and “weed delivery in [city]”.

The international system hasn’t caught up—but smart governments and brands aren’t waiting.

Why Prohibition Doesn’t Work

• It never has!
• Black markets thrive.
• Research into cannabinoids like CBD, CBG, and CBDA remains bottle necked.
• Nonviolent cannabis users still face arrest and stigma.
• Consumers are left without product safety, dosing clarity, or educational guidance.

Meanwhile, responsible businesses like Casco Bay Hemp lead with third-party testing, transparency, and plant-based wellness. That’s how trust—and reform—get built.

Call to Action: Policy and Visibility Go Hand in Hand

To policymakers and public health leaders: It’s time to move beyond the failed war on cannabis. Reschedule it based on science, not 100-year-old propaganda, fear, and stigma.

To customers and community: Help us push forward. Leave a review, share this article, or search for Casco Bay Hemp with your city attached. Every click, comment, and conversation moves the algorithm—and the culture.
To fellow cannabis businesses: Match your values with your visibility. Clean, honest SEO is the new word of mouth. Invest in your infrastructure the same way we invest in our formulations: with care, clarity, and long-term thinking.

Because prohibition is broken. But the future of cannabis? That’s wide open.

Shop CBD Products

The post Cannabis and the UN 2025 Drug Report: Why Prohibition Fails—and Smart Regulation Wins appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

When it comes to hemp-derived wellness products, not all are created equal. At Casco Bay Hemp, we go far beyond what’s required in the U.S. because our products must meet the strict international regulatory standards of countries like Brazil and those in the European Union. While many domestic brands cut corners under minimal oversight, Casco Bay Hemp is held to pharmaceutical-level compliance by agencies like ANVISA (Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency) and EU Novel Foods regulations — and that makes all the difference.

Held to International Standards: ANVISA and Novel Foods

Exporting to Brazil means adhering to one of the most rigorous regulatory frameworks in the world. ANVISA requires full traceability, validated testing from ISO-accredited labs, and consistent batch documentation to ensure safety and efficacy. In the EU, products must comply with Novel Foods regulations, requiring detailed toxicology data, manufacturing controls, and proof of ingredient safety. These are the same regulatory paths used to evaluate pharmaceuticals.

This means every product we make — from our Rise & Grind CBG tincture to our high-strength full spectrum CBD oils — is crafted with precision, transparency, and accountability. Our formulations are built to pass the scrutiny of doctors and health ministries in countries where hemp-based therapeutics are taken seriously.

Why the U.S. Lags Behind

In stark contrast, hemp-derived products in the United States are considered consumer goods, not medicines. Despite the 2018 Farm Bill federally legalizing hemp, the FDA has failed to create a regulatory framework for cannabinoids like CBD and CBG. As a result, companies are not permitted to make any claims about what these products are designed to treat — even when scientific studies, clinical data, and international approvals suggest otherwise.

The U.S. Congress remains paralyzed by partisanship, decades-old stigma, and the residue of prohibition-era propaganda. While other countries are embracing cannabinoid-based therapies as part of mainstream healthcare, American consumers are left with vague labels, minimal guidance, and a regulatory void that benefits neither patients nor responsible businesses.

Same Products, Different Rules

Here’s the reality: The very same Casco Bay Hemp products that are prescribed by doctors in Brazil or sold under medical supervision in the EU are, in the U.S., simply not regulated, with a disclaimer that we can’t say what they were formulated to do.

But make no mistake — these aren’t the gas station gummies or mystery oils that have given hemp a bad name. Our products are tested for purity, potency, and contaminants, using the same lab standards applied to pharmaceuticals. We go through these steps not because the U.S. makes us — but because our global partners, and our own ethics, demand it.

Our Commitment to You

At Casco Bay Hemp, we believe in full transparency, clean inputs, and functional formulations that truly support wellness. Whether you’re in Maine or São Paulo, Berlin or Barcelona, you deserve a product that meets the highest standard — not the lowest bar.

Until the U.S. catches up, we’ll continue to do what’s right: follow the science, meet international regulatory expectations, and never compromise quality for convenience. Because when it comes to your health and well-being, second-rate isn’t good enough.

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Tucked deep within the FY2026 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, lawmakers have inserted language that would redefine hemp in a way that bans any product containing a quantifiable amount of THC — even trace amounts. If passed, this would eliminate the majority of full spectrum hemp products currently available to consumers nationwide.

This provision, championed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), mirrors the failed “Mary Miller Amendment” from 2023 — a proposal that was widely rejected following public backlash. But Harris, who chairs the subcommittee overseeing this bill, is now reviving the effort through legislative fine print that few outside D.C. will even notice — unless we speak up.

What’s at Stake?

The proposed definition would not just target products marketed for intoxication. It threatens to ban safe, federally legal, full spectrum CBD products — including tinctures, capsules, topicals, and edibles — simply because they contain trace levels of naturally occurring THC. These are the same trace compounds Congress permitted when it legalized hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill.

What’s more, this ban would undermine consumer access to the therapeutic potential of full spectrum hemp, which includes a wider array of cannabinoids and terpenes working together to support sleep, reduce stress, promote recovery, and maintain balance through the entourage effect.

Stripping access to these products doesn’t just harm the hemp industry — it robs consumers of freedom of choice in managing their own wellness.

Why You Should Care

Rep. Harris holds powerful sway as a subcommittee “Cardinal” with significant control over federal spending. Though this bill has failed to pass in previous sessions, his position gives the language a chance to advance quietly — and we can’t afford to ignore it.

How You Can Help

1. Speak up now. Call or email your members of Congress. Urge them to oppose any language that redefines hemp or limits access to safe, legal hemp products.
2. Share this with your community. Awareness is key.
3. Stay in the loop. Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates and alerts as this unfolds.

The subcommittee will meet Wednesday, June 5 at 10:30 a.m. — and while the bill is still far from becoming law, now is the time to act.

Let’s protect the future of hemp — for our industry, our customers, and the freedom to choose natural wellness.

The post Breaking: New Federal Spending Bill Threatens to Ban Full Spectrum Hemp Products appeared first on Casco Bay Hemp.

What Is the STATES Act?

Originally introduced in 2018, the STATES Act seeks to amend the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to exempt individuals and businesses complying with state, tribal, or territorial cannabis laws from federal enforcement. This legislation does not federally legalize cannabis but respects the autonomy of states to regulate it as they see fit.

What Will It Do?

The STATES Act aims to resolve the conflict between federal prohibition and state-level legalization by ensuring that activities compliant with local cannabis laws are not subject to federal penalties. This includes protections for medical and recreational cannabis programs, as well as safeguards for financial institutions serving the cannabis industry.

What Are the Latest Changes?

Reintroduced on April 17, 2025, the STATES 2.0 Act includes several updates:

• Federal Non-Interference: The bill reinforces that the federal government will not interfere with states or tribes that have chosen to legalize cannabis.
• Regulatory Framework: It proposes a basic federal regulatory structure for cannabis products, facilitating a smoother transition should federal legalization occur.
• Financial Protections: The act addresses financial challenges by providing clarity for banks and financial institutions, encouraging them to offer services to cannabis businesses without fear of federal penalties.

For hemp and cannabis businesses, the STATES 2.0 Act represents a pivotal step toward resolving the legal ambiguities that have long plagued the cannabis industry. By aligning federal policy with state laws, the act could facilitate greater access to banking services, reduce legal risks, and promote industry growth.

The reintroduction of the STATES 2.0 Act underscores a growing bipartisan consensus on the need to respect state decisions regarding cannabis legalization. While the bill does not legalize cannabis at the federal level, it offers a pragmatic approach to harmonizing federal and state laws, providing much-needed clarity and stability for the industry.

As the legislative process unfolds, stakeholders in the cannabis sector should monitor developments closely, as the passage of the STATES 2.0 Act could significantly impact the regulatory landscape.

Casco Bay Hemp remains committed to navigating the evolving legal environment and supporting efforts that promote responsible cannabis regulation. As always, reach out if you have any questions!

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