Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz is wading into the debate over hemp ripping through the halls of the Senate this week, asking the chamber to keep a provision in the continuing resolution that would delay an impending ban on hemp products.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) championed adding language to the Senate CR bill this week that would extend when the impending hemp ban would go into effect, pushing the date back from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11 if the CR is passed. But the language has faced major pushback from drug safety advocates, with Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) leading a charge to strike the delay from the funding bill and preserve the ban’s original start date.
However, Oz has stepped in as the latest Trump administration official to urge the Senate not to pass Budd’s amendment to the CR, arguing it goes against CMS’s work to expand access to hemp-derived CBD products to patients who use CBD supplements to manage chronic pain, pain from cancer, and seizure disorders.
“Passage of this amendment would undo significant gains that have been made to make clinically-appropriate full-spectrum hemp-derived CBD accessible to the senior citizens and individuals with disabilities that rely on the Medicare program for their healthcare,” Oz wrote in a letter to the upper chamber.
At the heart of the debate is the definition of legal hemp, which was changed in November 2025 as part of another funding bill, set to take effect on Nov. 12, 2026.
The current definition of hemp, which was established under the 2018 Farm Bill, sets the legal limit to no more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC, or about 3 milligrams per serving. However, the 2025 change shifted the language to set the legal limit at 0.4 mg of total hemp-derived THC per container, which, when it goes into effect on Nov. 12, would wipe out nearly all hemp products on the market.
However, after the 2025 language was put into place by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, the Trump administration shifted its relationship with the hemp industry and cannabis sativa products. Trump signed an executive order rescheduling marijuana as he touted the benefits of CBD in December 2025, while Oz unveiled a new CMS pilot program on CBD.
Oz’s pilot program allows eligible Medicare beneficiaries at participating healthcare providers to purchase $500 worth of hemp-derived products annually for medical purposes. That program, called the Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive, uses the 2018 Farm Bill language to define hemp. If the 2025 hemp-banning language goes into effect on Nov. 12, the change may send the program into disarray.
Oz pointed to the CMS pilot program in his letter to the Senate, urging them to keep the delay on the ban in the CR language, saying that Budd’s amendment “would rip away from millions of seniors and disabled Americans the opportunity to benefit from these new programs.”
Budd responded to Oz’s letter on X, pointing to the hemp “loophole,” which allows for intoxicating hemp products to be sold in common places like gas stations, that proponents of the ban have raised alarm bells about.
“Why do unregulated intoxicating edibles need to be available at gas stations for CMS to continue studying hemp-derived pain relief?” Budd questioned in response to Oz’s letter. “Why should we allow these products on shelves for one more day when someone could make a decision that will alter their future by buying them?”
The debate over hemp has stalled the Senate’s hopes to quickly usher through a bipartisan continuing resolution to fund the government through Dec. 11 and stave off a government shutdown at the end of September before the chamber leaves for August recess.
The debate has ripped through both parties, with Democrats and Republicans backing both sides. Budd’s amendment is bipartisan, and so was Klobuchar’s initial push to delay the ban.