It’s not often in Washington, D.C. that a special interest group directly contradicts itself, but the Hemp Roundtable did just that.
In 2022, the Associated Press exposed how chemists were chemically processing CBD extracted from hemp to produce delta-8 THC, an intoxicating compound. A loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill opened the floodgates to unregulated and untested delta-8 THC products that could be sold as candy, gummies, and vape oil at gas stations and convenience stores nationwide.
The Hemp Roundtable told the Associated Press that marketing intoxicating products this way “undermines the integrity of the hemp industry and intent of the 2018 Farm Bill.” The group made the same point on social media that year, calling for these products to “…be regulated and sold in adult-use cannabis channels,” not left in an unregulated gray market. The industry itself was on record saying that this loophole was a problem and that these products at issue didn’t belong in an unregulated market next to the gum and beef jerky.
Today, the same group is spending millions to keep this loophole open, despite knowing the public safety risks.
Since then, these delta-8 THC products have created unmitigated havoc across the country, with no laws, regulations, or safety checks to stop them. A study by researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found that delta-8 THC exposures reported to poison centers nationwide rose nearly 80% between 2021 and 2022, with children under 6 accounting for nearly one in three exposures and more than half of critical care admissions. A separate peer-reviewed study estimated that pediatric cannabis poisonings arriving at U.S. hospital emergency departments rose 461 percent between 2018 and 2023, with most cases being linked to edibles made to look like candy and snacks.
Finally, after pressure from terrified parents, law enforcement officials, and medical professionals, Congress voted to close the loophole last November, creating a regulatory framework almost identical to the “adult-use cannabis channels” solution the hemp industry endorsed just a couple of years ago.
But the ban won’t take place until December, at the earliest. We won’t know how many kids were harmed between when the ban was passed into law and when it goes into effect for another year or two. But we do know parents have been anxiously waiting for these dangerous products to finally be taken off shelves.
Since last November, hemp special interests have used every lever they can, including connections to the White House, to open the loophole again. And it worked. At the last minute, they inserted language into a Senate funding bill that delays the ban’s effective dates from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11.
This month, the Hemp Roundtable celebrated it as a “landmark victory” and the biggest win for the industry since the original 2018 Farm Bill. The Hemp Roundtable’s general counsel has already said the group’s “work is not done,” and that it plans to keep pushing for a more permanent rewrite when the next funding deadline arrives in December.
Thirty-five state attorneys general, led by Indiana’s Todd Rokita, sent a letter to congressional leaders warning that any delay hands the industry “another opportunity to reopen a loophole that was already voted closed” so it can keep profiting from products that mimic marijuana without any of marijuana’s regulatory guardrails. That’s not a talking point made up by opponents of hemp, but from state elected officials whose only concern is the safety of their people.
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The only thing that has changed for the Hemp Roundtable since its opposition to delta-8 products is the amount of money they’ve made from them. The hemp industry has made more than $20 billion on intoxicating THC products since 2018 and has used its new financial power to force Congress to open up its loophole to continue preying upon our children.
None of this is a case against hemp as an industry or against the farmers growing it for fiber, grain, and legitimate nonintoxicating products, the same distinction the Hemp Roundtable itself has always drawn. It’s a case against unregulated and untested, chemically derived THC products that undermine the integrity of the hemp industry. The Hemp Roundtable said so itself, in print, four years ago.
Emmett Reistroffer is a prominent South Dakota cannabis executive who runs that state’s largest licensed medical cannabis company.