Farm Bill protections remain for hemp amid federal budget chaos

Existing Farm Bill protections remained in place for U.S. hemp operators as the federal government lurched toward a partial shutdown Friday after the failure of a spending plan.

Yet another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp production nationwide and inadvertently led to the proliferation of intoxicating hemp-derived THC products, was in the works before President-elect Donald Trump intervened.

Trump on Wednesday demanded a drastic revision of a short-term spending bill that congressional leaders had agreed to in principle.

That revised version failed during a Thursday night vote, setting up a potential government shutdown on Friday.

In the meantime, existing federal protections for the hemp industry remain, though many states have passed restrictions or outright bans on hemp-derived products that advocates insist are federally legal.

The 2018 Farm Bill, which Trump signed into law with endorsement from former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, expired in 2023.

Competing Republican and Democratic proposals for a new five-year bill in 2024 included language that jeopardized the uneasy status quo but ultimately went nowhere.

That void has left it up to state lawmakers to close what many have acknowledged was an unintended “loophole” that many operators have used to sell products with intoxicating levels of hemp-derived THC.

Such products include gummies and drinks containing hemp-derived delta-9 THC as well as lesser-known “novel cannabinoids” that include delta-8 and delta-10 THC as well as so-called THCA flower.