Senate Farm Bill Just Dropped As I’ve said for many months, the likelihood of a Farm Bill renewal in 2024 is very low. Although the bill technically expired at the end of October 2024, until today we had not seen even the first draft of a Senate version. The House version, released back in April, notably ended up with the now infamous “Mary Miller Amendment,” which would have banned any hemp with “quantifiable,” amounts of d9-THC.
This new draft takes a different approach. Specifically, it would amend the Farm Bill to:
-
Changes the definition of hemp to include “total” THC, removing the d9 prefix and specifically including THCA as included in the count;
-
Include a new definition of “industrial hemp;”
-
Industrial hemp cultivation is exempt from background checks;
-
USDA may establish a certified seed program which would exempt the producer from certain testing requirements;
-
Expressly states that the Farm Bill does not preempt or limit any state or tribal law that regulates hemp products.
While the text changes are relatively minute, this would have big practical effects on the hemp landscape as we know it.
First of all, Weed Drinks World will live on.
This Farm Bill does not enshrine a totality of the right to sell hemp-derived Weed Drinks, but it does leave them alone as drinks can still be created under the 0.3% “total” THC threshold, as can most edibles. It doesn’t explicitly endorse the practice either, but it doesn’t need to. If such a bill passed tomorrow, Total Wine & More could keep on keeping on with Cantrip products with no real change to business operations. Industrial hemp, as now separately, would not be able to be used in cannabinoid manufacturing. This could be somewhat thorny if byproduct streams can’t be merged, but that’s too complicated a web to untangle.
The effect of this would almost certainly be a major shot in the arm. By reaffirming the definition of hemp in this way, I expect the market would go into overdrive and we will see a much, much wider pool of entrants into the THC drinks space as well as a flood of money into the market. Prices will crater as new funds subsidize operators in an attempt to win the competition - and I fully expect this to happen as soon as the Farm Bill is signed.
It’s not clear at this time what cannabinoids would be included in “total” THC - presumably d8, d10, THCP, and THCO are all in there - but what of HHC, or other cannabinoids that don’t start with the “tetra” prefix? I think it also remains unclear how effectively the government might communicate this down to local law enforcement and whether or not anyone in position of such flower is immediately a criminal once more, or if somehow you could have an amnesty window for people to discard product (although they would probably simply sell it off as quickly as possible anyway.)
The change in that one policy alone would remove likely billions with a B from the size of the hemp economy and have drastic effects on many operators. Cookies sells THCA flower. I’m certain many labs process it as naturally extracted d9-THC for hemp, although Cantrip won’t work with any of those labs. And then of course retailers are left holding it. But I believe this is for the best, given the madness that THCA flower and alternative cannabinoids have caused in each market.
Politically speaking, this would make my job a lot easier - but it would crush thousands of small hemp businesses across the country, many of whom contribute to funding keeping hemp alive at the state level. With hemp retailers badly handicapped, the major contributors to state lobbying efforts may somewhat evaporate, which is important because of the last point:
This specifically undercuts federal preemption arguments often used in court to fight hemp bans, making it hard to succeed in court. Federal preemption frequently is an ineffective argument as states already have broad discretion to regulate the sale of consumable products in their state in the interest of public health, but it has worked on occasion in states like Arkansas and I believe in Alabama.
This piece is important because it means that we will continue to need to lobby in each state as legislation arises; it hopefully also means a softening of the stance of the legislators and marijuana companies in those states once flower and vapes are effectively defunct in the hemp channel. It will also mean an evaporation of funds of many of those retailers, which could potentially be filled in be the alcohol organizations taking a larger role in the conversation.
With this text dropping, the Senate is clearly signalling they are not going to adopted the Mary Miller amendment and are seeking alternatives to tamp down on the more dangerous parts of the hemp marketplace while leaving in place full spectrum CBD products and lower dose THC products - while leaving the states to decide what is best for them.
I predict that this signal by Congress, combined with a certain general pro-cannabis bullishness by the incoming administration, will spike market interest in the category and see the introduction of big unlocks in funding for the space as well as many new, and probably some big, market entrants.
I’ll leave below the full text changes so you can read through them without having to actually try to do it in your head while reading the bill text.
https://cantripguy.substack.com/p/senate-farm-bill-just-dropped-and?r=hhpns&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true