From the onset of marijuana prohibition, criminalization advocates sought to advance their agenda — an unduly influence to the public — by sensationalizing the supposed strength of cannabis. 

In the 1930s, while lobbying for the first-ever federal ban on cannabis, Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger alleged that the marijuana of a century ago was so uniquely potent that it was “entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.”

Since then, legalization opponents have repeatedly alleged that cannabis’ potency has exponentially grown stronger. Testifying before Congress in 1996, then-Sen. Joe Biden opined that the potency of 1990s weed was unlike anything America had ever seen. “It’s like comparing buckshot in a shotgun shell to a laser-guided missile,” he said.

Modern day prohibitionists continue to engage in this same rhetorical tactic.

Let’s set the record straight. First, the availability of higher potency cannabis products is not a phenomenon unique to today’s state-legal markets. In fact, more potent products like hashish have always been publicly available. 

Typically, when consumers encounter higher strength marijuana, they ingest lesser quantities of it. This self-regulatory process is known as self-titration.

Second, higher potency marijuana products do not dominate state-legal markets. In fact, retail sales records from legal states show that most consumers tend to prefer and gravitate toward lesser strength products. 

Third, unlike alcohol (which is readily available in a variety of potencies, including highly-potent formulations like grain alcohol and absinthe), THC is incapable of causing lethal overdose — regardless of its potency or the quantity consumed. 

That’s not to say that cannabis products cannot be over-consumed. They can. But in such instances, consumers typically experience only temporary dysphoria (commonly referred to as a panic attack) — the effects of which dissipate within a few hours. (By contrast, alcohol overconsumption is associated with some 2,200 overdose deaths annually.) 

Nonetheless, in order to discourage overconsumption, most states regulate certain cannabis products, like edibles, to single serving sizes. All legal states require that products’ potencies appear on their labels so consumers can make informed decisions prior to consuming them. 

In some instances, overexposure to higher strength products might induce temporary psychotic-like symptoms. However, such incidents are exceedingly rare and are typically exclusive to those who are either predisposed to or have a preexisting psychiatric disorder. (Notably, exposure to high-potency alcohol also triggers psychosis in certain consumers.) 

Specifically, an exhaustive study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association determined that “state medical and recreational cannabis policies were not associated with a statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related health outcomes.”

Overall, most Americans are happy with cannabis legalization. Thirteen years into states’ marijuana legalization experiment, public support for making marijuana legal nationwide has never been higher. To date, 24 states have legalized the adult-use market. None of these states have everrepealed their legalization laws. That’s because these policies are working largely as voters and politicians intended — and because they are preferable to cannabis criminalization.

Ultimately, any potential harms associated with cannabis are best mitigated by a policy of legalization, regulation and education. They are only exacerbated by criminalization, sensationalism and stigmatization.

A version of this op-ed was initially published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

As the hemp industry raises concerns about congressional attempts to ban most consumable cannabinoid products, a GOP senator has filed a bill that would triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, last week. It mirrors versions he’s sponsored over the last several sessions.

Hemp and its derivatives were legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, but the industry has experienced multiple setbacks in the years since—and the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoid products has led to pushes in Congress and state legislatures across the country to reign in the largely unregulated market.

To that point, a GOP-led House committee this week approved a spending bill containing provisions that hemp stakeholders say would devastate the industry, prohibiting most consumable cannabinoid products that were federally legalized during the first Trump administration.

The legislation would “effectively” criminalize hemp-derived cannabinoid products, including CBD, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.

In contrast, the newly reintroduced measure from Paul would address one of the most common complaints that lawmakers have heard from hemp businesses under the current law, which is that the crop is federally defined as containing no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. They say that’s too low, and so the bill would increase that threshold to 1 percent.

It would also address potential problems with testing requirements under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. Hemp processors currently get a 15-day window to test the crop’s flower to ensure that the THC concentration is within the allowed limits. But testing flower can be onerous and farmers have said it would stretch their resources thin, not to mention that the plant’s THC is significantly impacted by external factors.

To fix that issue, the bill calls for final hemp products themselves to be tested, rather than the initial flower from the plant.

The legislation also sets documentation requirements for people transporting hemp shipments, intended to prevent further instances of law enforcement seizing the legal crop, believing it to be illicit marijuana. The bill expands the type of documentation that people could possess to demonstrate product legality.

Whereas the initial version of Paul’s measure filed in 2020 would have required them to carry a certificate from a lab demonstrating that the product contains no more than 1 percent THC, they could now instead choose to simply bring a copy of the hemp producer’s license.

While stakeholders would welcome the senator’s proposal, there’s also significant anxiety within the industry about the separate legislation that would significantly upend the hemp market that’s developed over the last several years.

While report language attached to the 2026 appropriations bill was recently amended to clarify lawmakers’ intent not to disrupt the non-intoxicating cannabinoid market—signaling that products like CBD shouldn’t be banned—the legislation itself hasn’t changed and could still jeopardize the industry without further amendments to its provisions.

Hemp industry stakeholders rallied against that proposal, an earlier version of which was also included in the base bill from the subcommittee last year. It’s virtually identical to a provision of the 2024 Farm Bill that was attached by a separate committee last May via an amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), which was also not enacted into law.

A leading alcohol industry association, meanwhile, has called on Congress to dial back language in the House spending bill that would ban most consumable hemp products, instead proposing to maintain the legalization of naturally derived cannabinoids from the crop and only prohibit synthetic items.

Members of Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) also met with lawmakers and staffers in April to advocate for three key policy priorities that the group says is based on “sound principles of alcohol distribution.” They include banning synthetic THC, setting up a federal system for testing and labeling products and establishing state-level power to regulate retail sales.

Separately, key GOP congressional lawmakers—including one member who supports marijuana legalization—don’t seem especially concerned about provisions in the new spending bill that would put much of the hemp industry in jeopardy by banning most consumable products derived from the plant.

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Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told congressional lawmakers in April that the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products.

At the hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) also inquired about FDA inaction around regulations, sarcastically asking if it’d require “a gazillion bureaucrats that work from home” to regulate cannabinoids such as CBD.

A report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) last year called cannabis a “significant threat” to the alcohol industry, citing survey data that suggests more people are using cannabis as a substitute for alcoholic beverages such a beer and wine.

Last November, meanwhile, a beer industry trade group put out a statement of guiding principles to address what it called “the proliferation of largely unregulated intoxicating hemp and cannabis products,” warning of risks to consumers and communities resulting from THC consumption.

Read the text of the HEMP Act below:

Marijuana Opponents ‘Have Lost’ The Debate, GOP Senator Says, Arguing ‘It’s Time’ To Regulate It Like Alcohol And Tobacco

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.

U.S. House Republicans advanced what many view as a hemp-killing provision in a must-pass appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026.

The House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines, 35-27, on June 23 to approve the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. The 138-page spending bill includes more than $25 billion in discretionary allocations to address myriad issues facing U.S. farmers, ranchers and rural communities.

In addition to focusing on America’s food and drug supply, this year’s bill also includes language to rewrite the rules around hemp-derived cannabinoid products. The provision aims to address what elected officials and law enforcement groups nationwide have increasingly viewed as a public health and safety concern in the aftermath of the 2018 Farm Bill’s federal legalization of industrial hemp cultivation. The 2018 Farm Bill regulates hemp as an agricultural commodity but not finished goods containing the plant’s derivatives.

Under the Appropriation Committee’s fiscal 2026 legislation, hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing synthetic compounds and/or quantifiable amounts of THC or THCA—or other cannabinoids that have similar effects on humans or animals—would be illegal.

When the legislation first advanced through the House Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on June 5, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said he was hoping to close the “hemp loophole” in the 2018 Farm Bill that has resulted in the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoid products, such as those that contain delta-8 THC.

Harris, who chairs the subcommittee, provided similar opening remarks for the full committee markup that followed.

“As many states have stepped in to curb these dangerous products from reaching consumers, particularly children, it’s time for Congress to act to close this loophole while protecting the industrial hemp industry,” Harris said. “Reports that the included language would destroy legitimate businesses are simply not true—and that is clear to anyone closely reading the carefully drafted language that threaded the needle.”

The U.S. Hemp Roundtable accused Harris earlier this month of “reviving his crusade” to “quietly” dismantle the hemp industry by burying language on page 113 of the proposed spending bill that would redefine hemp in a way that would “ban the vast majority of safe, legal hemp-derived products sold nationwide.”

The industry advocacy organization contended that the bill’s inclusion of language to prohibit products with “quantifiable amounts” of THC or THCA would also effectively ban most nonintoxicating CBD products.

Renée Johnson, a specialist in agricultural policy with the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), authored a June 13 report on the appropriations bill that backed that claim, writing that “excluding hemp-derived cannabinoid products from the federal definition of hemp effectively would prohibit production and sale of hemp-derived cannabinoids, derivatives, and extracts thereof, including cannabidiol (CBD).”

However, an updated version of Johnson’s CRS report was published on June 20 to exclude any mention of CBD.

Manufacturing hemp products with a purified CBD isolate that filters out even trace amounts of THC is a much more expensive process: Under the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp can contain up to 0.3% delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis during a pre-harvest field test. But eliminating that potency threshold would change the compliance rules on finished goods.

The House Appropriations Committee approved a manager’s amendment (from Harris) on June 11, clarifying that in “determining the quantifiable amounts, the committee does not intend for industrial or nonintoxicating, hemp-derived cannabinoid products with trace or insignificant amounts of THC to be affected.”

The legislation authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to determine what qualifies as “quantifiable amounts” of THC or other cannabinoids. In addition, industrial hemp grown for fiber, grain or other non-cannabinoid purposes would be defined separately.

While thousands of U.S. businesses have become dependent on manufacturing, distributing and selling consumable products containing intoxicating hemp derivatives, not all industry associations necessarily disagree with the intent of the appropriations bill.

The American Trade Association of Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH) stands on the principle that intoxicating products should be regulated when available for consumers to improve public safety and promote growth for the cannabis industry.

“The 2018 Farm Bill set the stage for the proliferation of synthetic THC products,” ATACH President Michael Bronstein said in a June 23 statement provided to Cannabis Business Times. “Today’s action by the House Appropriations Committee is an important first step toward addressing the risks posed by synthetic THC products, creating clear regulatory lanes for hemp-derived products, and resolving legal loopholes.

“Congress must confront the dangers of chemically converted synthetic THC products, safeguard CBD, and create parity across natural THC products regardless of origin. We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to create a unified federal framework for all natural THC products.”

Harris also included similar hemp language in his subcommittee’s draft of the fiscal 2025 agriculture/FDA spending bill, but it was later removed from last year’s appropriations package.

This year’s rendition is now being prepared to arrive on the House floor.