Tag: hemp

Federal Judge Dismisses Prohibitionist Lawsuit Challenging Medicare CBD Program

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit led by Smart Approaches to Marijuana challenging the Trump administration’s Medicare-linked CBD program, finding the plaintiffs failed to show they had standing to bring the case.

Judge Trevor N. McFadden, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed the case Friday, finding that SAM, MMJ International Holdings, its subsidiaries and the other plaintiffs failed to meet the basic requirement needed to sue in federal court.

SAM and its allies had asked the court to halt a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services program connected to hemp-derived CBD access for certain Medicare patients. The challenge had been placed on an expedited track after the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and again asked for emergency court intervention.

“Each claims an injury too abstract or too remote to open the courtroom doors,” McFadden wrote.

Rather than weighing the broader legal claims raised in the lawsuit, McFadden said the case could not proceed because the plaintiffs did not establish Article III standing.

“At the outset, the Court notes that it need not tackle the bulk of questions that Plaintiffs raise in their motions,” McFadden wrote. “That is because Plaintiffs’ case suffers from a fatal flaw: the failure to establish Article III standing to bring their claims. The Court addresses only this jurisdictional hole and will dismiss the entire suit and deny Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction as moot.”

Because of that finding, the court did not rule on whether the plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction. McFadden instead concluded that the alleged harms outlined by the plaintiffs were not concrete enough to keep the lawsuit alive.

The case was brought by SAM, allied prohibitionist organizations, individual activists and MMJ International Holdings, a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical company. The plaintiffs claimed the program raised legal and public health concerns, but McFadden found their alleged injuries were too distant from the policy to support federal jurisdiction.

The decision is a major loss for opponents of the Medicare-linked CBD policy, which has drawn attention as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to expand medical marijuana and cannabidiol (CBD) research and access.

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How US hemp ban could criminalize CBD products – and derail Medicare plan

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently started a new pilot to reimburse patients for hemp-derived products – like CBD – but a hemp ban that Congress passed in November could derail the program.

The new program will make certain Medicare and Medicaid recipients eligible for reimbursement for up to $500 worth of hemp products each year and is intended in part to evaluate whether these products could reduce their other health related costs.

But the program’s definition of hemp comes from the 2018 Farm Bill, which created the loophole that has allowed so many cannabis products to be sold outside state-authorized dispensaries. Under the Farm Bill, hemp is any cannabis product derived from plants containing less than .3% delta nine THC. If the hemp ban that passed with last year’s spending bill goes into effect as planned on 12 November (it goes into effect one year after passage), all products containing more than .4mg of THC of any kind will become federally illegal.

This would criminalize “the vast, vast majority of hemp products, including most non-intoxicating CBD products”, says Jonathan Miller of US Hemp Roundtable.

Inesa Ponomariovaite, owner of Nesa’s Hemp, which specializes in CBDA hemp extract, met with members of Congress this week to advocate for laws that would keep her products legal.

“Congress is trying to pass laws on something that they’re not even fully understanding, and that’s really going to affect us,” Ponomariovaite said, who noted that during her meetings, she had to explain the endocannabinoid system to senators who had not heard of it before.

The endocannabinoid system is a system of receptors throughout the brain and other organs that interacts with cannabinoids, which appear in the cannabis plant but also form naturally in the human body. It helps regulate pain, memory, cognitive processing and energy, which is part of why cannabis products affect us the way they do.

Ponomariovaite says products that contain a wide array of cannabinoids have stronger therapeutic effects than isolated CBD, for example, which might be the only type of CBD available should the ban go through.

Lawmakers have been trying to pass legislation to delay the hemp ban or replace it with regulation since it first passed, Miller said. In December, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden re-introduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, which would replace the ban with regulation to ensure hemp products are safe and free of contaminants. Indiana Representative Jim Baird introduced a bill in January that would delay the hemp ban for two years.

Miller blames political tension as to why neither of these laws have yet made it through Congress: “Congress isn’t passing anything these days, it’s so polarized and so partisan that it’s hard for them to pass even the most obvious bills, and so we’re kind of caught up in that.”

While the White House hasn’t proposed any specific counters to the hemp ban, Trump has posted on Truth Social calling for Congress “to update the Law to ensure that Americans can continue to access the full-spectrum CBD products they have come to rely on.”

The Trump administration has taken steps to reschedule cannabis to acknowledge its medical potential, but has also faced political resistance to many of its pro-cannabis policies, including the Medicare-linked hemp pilot program. A group of advocates, including Drug Free America Foundation and Cannabis Industry Victims Educating litigators sued the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and the CMS administrator, Mehmet Oz, over the program, accusing them of establishing a plan to promote substances that may soon be considered federally illegal without going through proper administrative procedure. The court denied the lawsuit’s attempt to block the program.

Ponomariovaite says that lawmakers are worrying about the wrong thing when they focus their energy on trying to dissect the cannabis plant, making parts of it legal and parts of it illegal. Their focus should instead be on contamination.

“Hemp itself is like a natural soil cleaner. It actually grabs all the micro toxins, the mildew, bacteria, metals, and absorbs them within the hemp plant. So if you extract that plant for medicinal properties, that plant is going to be loaded with toxins,” she said.

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Delaware Bill Would Require Intoxicating Hemp Products to Be Sold Through Licensed Marijuana Stores

A bill filed today in the Delaware House would place hemp-derived THC products under the state’s marijuana regulatory system, requiring products above a set THC threshold to be sold only through licensed marijuana stores.

House Bill 395 was filed by State Representative Nnamdi Chukwuocha (D), with State Senator Darius Brown (D), State Representative Edward Osienski (D), State Representative Debra Heffernan (D) and State Representative Alonna Berry (D) signed on as sponsors. The measure was assigned to the House Economic Development/Banking/Insurance and Commerce Committee.

The proposal would revise Delaware law so that industrial hemp is measured by total THC, rather than only delta-9 THC. Under the bill, a marijuana product would include any product intended to be ingested, inhaled, absorbed or otherwise introduced into the body that contains more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. The bill specifies that, for multipacks and similar products, the limit would apply to the combined THC content of the full package.

HB 395 would also define THC broadly to include delta-7, delta-8, delta-9 and delta-10 THC, along with salts, isomers and related compounds. It would create a new offense for maintaining an unlicensed marijuana establishment, applying to businesses that facilitate the sale, storage, delivery, distribution or cultivation of marijuana products without a valid Delaware marijuana license or endorsement.

Most violations would be a Class A misdemeanor, but the offense would rise to a Class G felony if the business is within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare or public park, operates by mail or without a storefront, involves individuals under 21, or has a prior violation within five years.

The bill would also make selling or providing marijuana or marijuana products to someone under 21 a Class B misdemeanor, while preserving an affirmative defense if the person presented identification that reasonably appeared to show they were 21 or older.

Proponents of the legislation say that it is not intended to criminalize lawful industrial hemp, but rather to address unregulated intoxicating THC products being sold outside Delaware’s licensed marijuana system.

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The True Cost of Tree Paper vs Hemp Paper

The paper industry consumes over 4 billion trees annually. That number has been growing steadily as global packaging demand increases — driven by e-commerce, food delivery, and the ongoing shift away from single-use plastics. But there’s a fundamental question that rarely gets asked: is wood actually the best fiber for making paper?

The answer, based on material science, economics, and environmental impact, is no. Hemp is a superior paper fiber by virtually every measurable metric. Here’s a comprehensive comparison.

Growth Cycle: 120 Days vs 20–80 Years

This is the most dramatic difference between hemp and trees as paper feedstock. Hemp reaches full maturity and is ready for harvest in approximately 120 days from planting. Trees used for paper pulp — primarily softwoods like pine and spruce — take 20 to 80 years to reach harvestable size, depending on the species and growing conditions.

This means a single field of hemp can produce a paper fiber harvest three times per year in tropical climates, or once per year in temperate zones. A forest planted for paper production will produce one harvest per generation. The throughput difference is staggering.

Yield Per Acre: 4x More Fiber

One acre of hemp produces approximately 4 times more usable paper fiber than one acre of trees over a 20-year cycle. This is a combination of hemp’s faster growth, higher cellulose content (57% vs 40–50%), and denser planting capacity.

In practical terms, this means that replacing tree-based paper with hemp paper would require dramatically less agricultural land. Given that deforestation for paper production is a significant driver of habitat loss and biodiversity decline, this land efficiency has enormous environmental implications.

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Texas Judge Pauses New Rules Banning Hemp Products Like Smokable THCA Flower Amid Legal Challenge From Industry

A Texas judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of new state rules restricting access to hemp-derived products such as smokable THCA flower.

The ruling on Friday comes in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of hemp industry leaders and advocacy organizations that claim the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) illegally bypassed lawmakers to effectively ban the sale and manufacture of certain consumable hemp products.

The order from District Court of Travis County Judge Guerra Gamble pauses the new hemp product restrictions for 14 days while the broader legal dispute is considered.

“This lawsuit is really based on a constitutional separation powers issue,” Jason Snell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, including the Texas Hemp Business Council (THBC) and Hemp Industry & Farmers of America (HIFA), said during a hearing on Friday, characterizing the new restrictions enacted by regulators as “illegal rules.”

“Here we are today, with the regulators attempting to do what the legislators could not and did not do, and that’s illegal,” he said. “What the legislature refuses to enact cannot be imposed through rulemaking. The rule-makers cannot overstep their authority and enact rules that are more restrictive than what the legislators have enacted.”

“Thousands of people lose their products, their lifetime investments, their businesses, their jobs, everything they poured their heart and soul into,” Snell said. “Those are already going away and could be gone forever unless this illegal regulatory framework is stopped.”

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Voters Gave Ohio Legal Cannabis. Then Lawmakers Took Away the Part That Helped Me.

I’m Tobey MacCachran – a senior journalism and English student at Denison University– and an intern with NORML since December. I came to cannabis advocacy the way most people arrive at anything that matters: it stopped being abstract. 

I’ve had a birthmark on my right wrist my whole life. Other kids would notice it, point at it, and make jokes, but I never minded. It was a part of me that was as ordinary as my hands or my name. I was born with it, and I was comfortable. 

Eczema was different. 

It showed up in my early teens, uninvited and impossible to ignore. Red, cracking patches spread across my skin during dry winters, causing my hands, wrists, and neck to resemble the surface of Mars. The birthmark was mine. The eczema felt like an invasion. And somewhere in the space between those two things, my relationship with my own body quietly changed. 

By high school, my life was dictated by small adjustments. Long sleeves on some days. Certain seats. Situations I’d remove myself from before anyone noticed. Shirt always on at the beach. And then at 17, I tried a cannabis topical for the first time. 

Something actually worked. And last Friday, Ohio made it a crime to access the product that helped me most. 

SB56 was sold as consumer protection. For people who depend on cannabis topicals for chronic pain and skin conditions, it landed like a punishment.

A cannabis topical isn’t recreational. It’s a cream or balm infused with cannabinoids applied directly to the skin. No high. No altered state. For millions of people managing chronic pain, inflammation, and skin conditions, it’s simply the thing that works when nothing else does. It was that for me – the first treatment in years that gave back some ordinary comfort in my own body. The kind of comfort I hadn’t realized I’d lost until I had it again. 

Ohio Senate Bill 56 went into effect on March 20th. Governor DeWine signed it in December, framing it as consumer protection – a crackdown on unregulated intoxicating hemp products that flooded gas stations and corner stores. And there’s a real conversation to be had there. But buried inside the bill are provisions that go far beyond protecting anyone. 

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Missouri Governor Says Restricting Hemp THC Products Is ‘Something We Need To Get Done’ As Ban Bill Heads To His Desk

Missouri’s governor says the state needs to take steps to restrict the availability of intoxicating hemp-derived THC products in line with legislation that lawmakers recently sent to his desk.

“At a high level, I’m very much in favor of taking these illegal drugs in the form of the candies and stuff off of the shelves for kids to be able to buy,” Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) said in an episode of  This Week in Missouri Politics that aired on Sunday.

While the governor said his office will “do bill review” on the specific provisions of the legislation that lawmakers passed last week, he generally agrees with its aim.

“The way the legislation is drawn up is it helps us match the federal standard that’s coming down on these issues,” Kehoe said, referring to national restrictions that President Donald Trump signed into law late last year and that are set to take effect this November.

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Ohio Judge Pauses Hemp Product Ban Enforcement, Saying It Favors Marijuana Industry

A Sandusky County court of common pleas judge has ruled that Ohio’s new law banning the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids except at licensed marijuana retailers is likely unconstitutional and has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Fremont Police Department from enforcing it.

The ruling impacts only the Fremont Police Department and “all who may act in concert with them” and remains in effect only until April 28. It comes in a case brought by Seattle-based Cycling Frog, a hemp cannabinoid beverage company that sells its products throughout Ohio, including Sandusky County.

Judge Jeremiah Ray held that the new law created by the passage of Senate Bill 56 appears to violate the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That law effectively gives the state’s licensed marijuana dispensaries a monopoly over what are federally legal hemp-derived products, Ray held. (Congress voted to radically restrict hemp-derived cannabinoids last November, but that law does not go into effect until this coming November.)

“The practical effect is to immunize Ohio’s in-state marijuana industry, which Ohio law requires to have an in-state physical presence, from out-of-state competition with respect to federally legal hemp products otherwise sold in interstate commerce,” Ray said, noting the law also discriminates against in-state businesses.

“The parallel intrastate discrimination is no defense to the interstate discrimination. Indeed, the existence of parallel intrastate discrimination makes the protectionist effect of the ordinance more acute,” he wrote. “This is because the licensed dispensaries and their attendant supply chain benefit from a lack of competition from either inside or outside Ohio. This is, thus, inherently discriminatory on its face.”

The attorney representing Cycling Frog, Andy Mayle, said he asked Ray to make the temporary restraining order a class action that would block all law enforcement agencies in the state from enforcing the law.

“That’s the next step in the case,” Mayle said. “If he does, then basically the bill—with respect to the traditional hemp industry—will not be enforceable in Ohio.”

The regulation of interstate commerce is the province of Congress, not the state of Ohio, Mayle added.

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Missouri Senate Passes Bill To Ban Intoxicating Hemp THC Products

After nine hours of debate over competing proposals to ban intoxicating hemp products, the Missouri Senate finally approved a House bill Tuesday night that would align state law with a federal ban set to take effect in November.

It also includes provisions to protect marijuana consumer privacy and cannabis workers’ right to organize.

It now heads back to the House, which can either ask for a conference to work out differences with the Senate or send it to the governor.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon, would prohibit hemp products from containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container, which is among the limits included in a provision in the federal spending bill Congress approved last year.

Even if Congress reverses course and decides to allow the sale of these products, Hinman’s bill would only permit them to be sold in Missouri’s licensed marijuana dispensaries. And if Congress chooses to delay the ban for a couple years, Missouri would still ban all products, except for intoxicating beverages.

“I had just a good opportunity over in the Senate to work with several of the senators to get some of the things that they wanted to get on there that I think actually benefit the bill,” Hinman told The Independent Wednesday morning. “So I’m very happy with the things that were done last night and look forward to bringing that to the House tomorrow.”

Resistance to the bill came from Republican senators who expressed concern that the hemp industry members weren’t included in the final negotiations that took place for more than 12 hours Tuesday.

And Democratic state Sen. Karla May of St. Louis argued Missouri would be taking a more restrictive approach than the federal government because the proposals would deem the intoxicating hemp products as “marijuana.”

“They claim they’re mirroring the federal regulation,” May said during the debate Tuesday. “There’s some things in there that’s going far beyond the federal regulation, such as…hemp-derived cannabinoids will be put under the marijuana umbrella and have to be sold in dispensaries.”

May successfully led a nearly seven-hour filibuster on the first bill brought for discussion, sponsored by Republican state Sen. David Gregory, which would have made the ban effective as soon as the governor signed it.

“We spent pretty much from 11 a.m. until really 9 p.m. trying to figure out where we wanted to go, trying different things,” Hinman said, regarding Gregory’s bill. “We couldn’t get everyone really to agree, and so the senator [Gregory] suggested, ‘Let’s just go back to Hinman’s bill and go with that.’”

In an unusual move, the senators decided to reconvene the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee at about 10 p.m. The same committee had decided not to vote on Hinman’s bill earlier that day, saying Hinman needed to reach a resolution with the hemp industry.

There was no public notice of the fiscal oversight committee’s evening meeting, which ended when senators voted to move the bill forward and allowed the full Senate to take it up for debate.

An amendment was approved to keep dispensaries from collecting marijuana consumers’ information unless they “opted in,” Hinman said, and another ensured all cannabis workers can unionize and shouldn’t be considered “agricultural workers” who aren’t protected under federal law. A group of workers in St. Louis have been battling this point since 2023.

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Judge Rejects Anti-Marijuana Groups’ Motion To Block CBD And THC Medicare Coverage Plan, Setting Hearing For 4/20

A federal judge has denied a request from a coalition of anti-marijuana organizations that sought to immediately block the Trump administration’s initiative to cover hemp-derived CBD and THC products through Medicare from launching on Wednesday.

The groups’ overall lawsuit challenging the policy is still under consideration, however, with a hearing on their separate motion for a preliminary injunction scheduled for April 20, which coincidentally is known as the unofficial cannabis cultural holiday 4/20.

Judge Trevor N. McFadden on Tuesday rejected the request from Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and nine other drug prevention groups to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the federal cannabis initiative, which is being facilitated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), from taking effect.

McFadden, in his one-page order, quoted case law holding that a temporary restraining order is an “extraordinary and drastic remedy” that can only be granted if a party makes a “clear showing that four factors, taken together, warrant relief: likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, a balance of the equities in its favor, and accord with the public interest.”

“Having considered the arguments in Plaintiffs’ motion and at a motions hearing, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have not met this high standard,” the judge wrote. “The motion for a temporary restraining order is thus denied. The Court will consider Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and motion to stay upon the completion of briefing.”

Defendants in the lawsuit—CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—now have until April 9 to file briefs responding to the prohibitionist groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs then have a reply brief due on April 13, a week ahead of the 4/20 hearing on the matter.

The lawsuit comes as CMS is set to start covering CBD and THC products under select federal health insurance programs as a Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive (BEI) beginning on Wednesday.

Under the BEI, patients enrolled in specific federal health insurance programs could have up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products covered each year. The CBD-focused plan will also allow a certain amount of THC in products, but the agency said that the rules are subject to change if federal hemp policy changes, as is currently expected under a law set to take effect later this year.

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