Imagine reaching for a package that looks nearly identical to a familiar candy brand, only to discover it contains enough intoxicating THC to seriously impair an unsuspecting adult or child.
This is the business model behind America’s deceptively dangerous gas station drugs: highly intoxicating THC products deceptively marketed as “hemp” and sold alongside everyday consumer products in gas stations, convenience stores, smoke shops, and online.
Their resemblance to popular candies and snacks isn’t incidental — it’s integral to the deception. Consumers are left to distinguish trusted brands from psychoactive look-alikes, often with devastating consequences.
As the harms mounted and became impossible to ignore, an extraordinary coalition urged Congress to act. Hundreds of parents shared heartbreaking stories of children and teenagers who unknowingly consumed deceptively marketed THC products, resulting in poisonings, emergency room visits, psychotic episodes, addiction, and other devastating consequences.
Their voices were joined by 39 Republican and Democratic attorneys general, pediatricians, public health leaders, youth-serving organizations, law enforcement, responsible hemp businesses, and even some of the U.S.’s best-known consumer brands whose iconic candies, snacks, and beverages were being imitated so convincingly that many consumers could not distinguish legitimate products from psychoactive look-alikes.
Congress listened. Last year, with bipartisan support including a supermajority of 76 senators, Congress closed the loophole by restoring the original intent of the Farm Bill: products marketed as “hemp” must be nonintoxicating. In doing so, lawmakers established a principle that should guide the future of both hemp and marijuana policy: products should be regulated according to their pharmacological effects and potential for harm — not by legal loopholes.
Congress has already done the difficult and courageous part. It recognized a loophole that transformed thousands of everyday retailers into sellers of dangerously deceptive drugs, products Congress never intended to be sold outside regulated marijuana markets. Congress generously provided manufacturers a full year to comply before the law takes effect in November.
There is no justification for further delay.
States across the country are already aligning with or moving toward the federal framework Congress established last year. Many now require intoxicating hemp products to be sold only through licensed marijuana businesses, while others have rejected industry-backed carve-outs designed to preserve the very loophole Congress intentionally closed.
That is why preserving the November implementation date is about far more than intoxicating hemp. It establishes the fundamental principle upon which cannabis policy should be built: products should be regulated according to their pharmacological effects and possibility for harm, not a loophole in the legal definition of hemp. Delaying the federal law would not only reward companies that exploited that loophole but also undermine the significant progress states have already made toward creating safer, more transparent cannabis markets.
The question before Congress is not whether it made the right decision. It unequivocally did, and our nation’s children, families, and communities across the country will be safer for it.
The question now is whether Congress will have the resolve to stay the course. This includes rejecting well-funded efforts to delay or weaken a law that has not even taken effect yet.
Keeping the November implementation date will help prevent more pediatric poisonings, emergency room visits, and youth mental health harms while strengthening consumer trust, preserving the integrity of legitimate hemp, creating fairness for responsible businesses, and establishing the foundation for a more coherent, science-based approach to cannabis policy.
THE DEA SHOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME THE AGENCY THAT NORMALIZED MARIJUANA
Congress has already demonstrated the courage to act. Now it must demonstrate the resolve to stand by that bipartisan decision and allow the law to take effect as enacted.
America’s children and future generations only get one chance to grow up. They deserve a marketplace built on honesty instead of deception, science instead of confusion, and accountability instead of loopholes. The United States and future generations deserve nothing less.
Diane Carlson is cofounder and president of One Chance to Grow Up, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting kids from today’s high-potency THC products through community education and groundbreaking policy. Learn more at OneChanceToGrowUp.org.