Congress banned most hemp-derived products, but a new Senate bill offers a national regulatory framework with real testing, age limits and THC caps. The fight now comes down to whether lawmakers choose prohibition or standards that match how the country already consumes cannabis.
For weeks, we’ve been tracking the slow-moving car crash that began when former President Donald Trump signed a spending bill that quietly folded a national hemp ban into the fine print. It was the kind of move that hits you twice: first when you realize it actually passed, then again when you see what it could do to one of the fastest-growing sectors of the cannabis economy.
Now there’s a counterproposal. Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley introduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, a bill that tries to pull the country back from the edge by swapping prohibition for a structured national rulebook. The idea is simple: replace a ban with standards that actually work.
“We learned from the failed war on drugs that a one-size-fits-all approach that bans hemp products from the market outright does nothing to protect kids and consumers,” Wyden told Marijuana Moment. Merkley added that blanket prohibition “harms research and the entire industry.”
If you’ve been following High Times over the past month, this tracks. We reported how the shutdown deal created the ban. We explained how the 0.4 milligram total THC cap would erase entire categories of products, including nonintoxicating ones. We documented how states are already signaling they won’t follow the federal script. We showed how Project 2025 thinking is shaping the conversation and how alcohol and traditional cannabis interests have joined the political tug of war. This new bill sits inside that same storm.
Under Wyden and Merkley’s plan, hemp beverages wouldn’t disappear. Instead, …
Read More
Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
