Tag: hemp

New Mexico Environment Department bans production of synthetic hemp in the state

The New Mexico Environment Department is doing what it can to regulate deceptive hemp products sold in stores by issuing an emergency ruling to ban the manufacturing of synthetic cannabinoids in New Mexico. “They’re putting something in their body without knowing what it is and without understanding what the effects may be. We believe that puts people at a significant health risk,” said John Rhoderick, Deputy Cabinet Secretary of Administration, New Mexico Environment Department.

Synthetic cannabinoids are products chemically altered to give similar effects to THC and are often sold at convenience stores with little regulation. This issue was at the center of a Larry Barker investigation, exposing the problem of cannabis products being identified as hemp, allowing them to be sold anywhere. A bill from last legislative session aimed to make it illegal for synthetic cannabinoids to be made or sold in New Mexico, but that bill failed.

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Texas Democrats’ Walkout Over Redistricting Endangers Hemp Ban Legislation

Texas Democratic House lawmakers are leaving the state to prevent a vote on redrawing the state’s congressional district map in Republicans’ favor—a move that could lead to a stalemate on a Senate-passed bill to ban hemp products containing any THC.

The cannabis legislation moved through the Senate on Friday and is now in the House’s court. But without a quorum, the chamber won’t be able to conduct legislative business as Democratic lawmakers flock to other states such as Illinois and New York—a strategy that’s produced mixed results in the past.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has threatened to remove those legislators from the House if they fail to show back up, and he also said members who received any financial support to leave the state could be subject to prosecution for felony bribery violations.

But in any case, time is running short in the special session the governor convened to address a series of outstanding issues, including legislation related to hemp cannabinoid products. Abbott vetoed an earlier version of the controversial ban, and he recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.

The special session started on July 21. Under the state constitution, special sessions cannot last longer than 30 days, meaning a quorum would need to be reestablished before August 20 if any bills are to move. Of course, nothing prevents the governor from calling another special session once that deadline passes.

“The path forward for legislation during this special session is unclear, including whether or not a THC ban could advance,” Heather Fazio, director of the advocacy group Texas Cannabis Policy Center, told Marijuana Moment on Monday.

“The status quo is certainly better than THC being banned outright, but we hope the legislature can sort through their differences and find a way to pass common sense regulations that restrict youth access, at minimum,” she said. “We are continuing our advocacy and working with those remain in the building to ensure they understand, the issue can make good decisions when the time comes. That could be later during this first special session or during the next one.”

Austin Zamhariri, executive director of Texas Cannabis Collective (TCC) said that “Texans have been fighting a total hemp consumable ban since it was announced by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) in December of last year.”

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California Moves to Ban Hemp Wellness Products — And the Weed Nuns Are Fighting Back

California’s Department of Public Health is pushing a new rule — and the timing couldn’t be worse.

A proposed regulation, known as DPH-24-005, would dramatically restrict access to hemp-derived wellness products across the state. The rule aims to prohibit the sale of any hemp topical, capsule, or tincture with more than trace amounts of THC (including naturally occurring Delta-9), even if federally legal and non-intoxicating. Critics say it would wipe out entire categories of hemp products — from calming balms to sleep aids — and gut small, community-driven businesses in the process.

One of the most vocal opponents? The Sisters of the Valley — better known as the “Weed Nuns” — a group of spiritual, feminist cannabis growers based in Merced County.

A Ban That Hits Small Operators Hard

“This is the Public Health Department caving to the dispensary lobby and consolidating the market further than they already have. This is a direct hit to small farms and small operators,” the Sisters warn.

According to the Sisters, the rule would criminalize their signature offerings: non-intoxicating, CBD-rich salves and oils crafted by hand in their small-scale, women-run operation. They argue that DPH-24-005 threatens not just their livelihood, but also consumer access to safe, plant-based alternatives.

They’re not alone. Dozens of California hemp farmers, herbalists, and activists are mobilizing to oppose the measure, saying it caters to the interests of cannabis corporations looking to eliminate competition from the hemp side of the market.

A Moment to Speak Out

A public hearing on the rule will be held via Zoom on Sunday, July 28, 2025, at 10:00 AM Pacific. Anyone in California — and beyond — can participate, and written comments will be accepted until July 30.

The Sisters have launched a campaign urging Californians to show up, speak out, and submit public comments before it’s too late.

“We ask our customers and fans to stand with us,” they wrote. “Not because we need more sales. But because the people’s medicine should not be outlawed by corporate lobbying.”

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GOP Senator Threatens To Block Spending Bill If Hemp THC Product Ban Stays In, Sources Say

A GOP senator is threatening to hold up a major spending bill unless changes are made to provisions that would currently ban most consumable hemp products, which stakeholders say would decimate the industry.

Multiple sources familiar with discussions around the legislation tell Marijuana Moment that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is intent on preventing the outright ban that was included in the Senate’s agriculture appropriations bill that advanced out of committee and now awaits floor action.

The prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action sent out an alert to its supporters on Friday, urging them to contact their representatives to push back against Paul’s efforts.

“The United States Senate is poised to overwhelmingly pass legislation banning hemp intoxicants, but Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is holding the bill hostage until he kills the hemp language,” it said. “Senator Paul wants to create a carve out for THC products like hemp beverages, in effect legalizing marijuana federally.”

While one source indicated that the senator was primarily focused on creating a carveout for hemp-derived THC beverages, two others who are aware of the conversations told Marijuana Moment that wasn’t the case. The exact scope of what Paul is aiming to achieve is unclear, but they say the senator is seeking a more holistic change to the controversial hemp language in the bill.

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Bipartisan Senators Agree To Delay Planned Federal Hemp Product Ban For One Year

A powerful Senate committee has approved a bill that contains provisions hemp industry stakeholders say would devastate the market by banning consumable hemp products with any “quantifiable” amount of THC. However, bipartisan members agreed to delay the implementation of the ban for one year.

On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA spending legislation that covers the next fiscal year—and also includes provisions that would significantly revise hemp laws following the crop’s legalization under the 2018 Farm Bill.

The bill “closes the hemp loophole that has resulted in the proliferation of unregulated intoxicating hemp products being sold across the country,” a committee summary says.

Ahead of the panel vote, several sources told Marijuana Moment that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who championed hemp legalization through that 2018 legislation while serving as majority leader, was behind the restrictive cannabis language, vying to redefine his legacy by recriminalizing intoxicating cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC.

At Thursday’s hearing, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said he appreciates McConnell’s concerns but worries that the new prohibition would be overbroad and impact even non-intoxicating products, saying the language “addresses one very important issue, but causes another problem.”

“It’s been a privilege to work with Senator McConnell on hemp,” he said. “We first brought to this committee the idea that research should be done on hemp, and then later we put in an amendment that proceeded to allow seeds to be transferred across states, and now there is a hemp industry.”

“The important issue it addresses is not allowing hemp to be grown to produce hallucinogenic products, and that, unfortunately, due to the magic of laboratories, has occurred,” Merkley said. “But then there are other products that come from hemp such as CBD that has, in fact, been a significant factor as a healthcare supplement in many, many products across America that does not have a hallucinogenic effect.”

“I would like to continue to work with Senator McConnell to see if we can develop, in the course of this year, a definition that addresses hallucinogenic factors but does not eliminate the CBD product that is non hallucinogenic [and] that is valued by many Americans across the land,” he said.

“I know that there’s important work to be done on the hemp, but this one year [delay] will enable our farmers who are growing hemp currently to produce this year’s crop within the existing framework, and we’ll have a conversation over the coming year,” Merkley said.

McConnell appeared less interested in using the year to establish an alternative regulatory framework, saying that he’s simply agreeing to “give our hemp farmers ample time to prepare for their future.”

“The 2018 Farm Bill federally legalized hemp as an agricultural product,” the senator said. “This language had an unintended consequence that has allowed for intoxicating hemp-derived synthetic products to be made and sold across our country.”

“These intoxicating products have flooded the market in the absence—no regulatory structure, and [businesses] often use deceptive and predatory marketing towards children with packaging and logos similar to existing food products such as Oreos, candy, gummies and cereals,” McConnell said.

“The way I see it, the language I helped secure takes us back to the original intent of the 2018 Farm Bill, and closes this loophole,” the former Senate majority leader said, adding that the hemp provisions prior agriculture legislation “sought to create an agricultural hemp industry—not open the door to the sale of unregulated, intoxicating lab-made, hemp-derived substances with no safety framework.”

The hemp language in the new Senate spending bill is nearly identical to what the House Appropriations Committee passed late last month, with noted cannabis prohibitionist Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) leading the charge.

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Hawaii Governor Signs Law Requiring Hemp Retailers to Register With State, Sets Age Restriction on Tinctures

The law, HB 1482, was signed on July 2 and will take effect January 1, 2026. It restricts sales of hemp-derived tinctures to those 21 and older, aligning the product category with rules for adult-use substances.

In addition to the registration requirement, the law grants health officials the authority to inspect facilities involved in hemp sales and distribution and to confiscate noncompliant products. It also makes clear that violations may be prosecuted under the state’s laws on unfair or deceptive practices, unfair competition, and nuisance abatement.

Oversight of hemp processing will fall to the Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation, which will administer a new program specifically for hemp processors. Registration fees and other costs tied to implementation will be funded through Hawaii’s Hemp Processing Special Fund.

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FDACS removes over 85K illegal hemp products in child safety crackdown

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson announced results of “Operation Safe Summer,” a statewide enforcement effort resulting in the removal of more than 85,000 hemp packages that were found in violation of state child-protection standards.

In the first three weeks of the operation, hemp-derived products were seized across 40 counties for “violations of Florida’s child-protection standards for packaging, labeling, and marketing,” according to a press release from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Simpson said they will continue to “aggressively enforce the law, hold bad actors accountable, and put the safety of Florida’s families over profits.”

The state previously issued announcements advising hemp food establishments on the planned enforcement of amendments to Rule 5K-4.034, Florida Administrative Code, a press release said.

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GOP Senator Who Helped Federally Legalize Hemp Is Seeking To Close ‘Loophole’ By Banning Products With Committee Vote This Week, Sources Say

The senator who championed the federal legalization of hemp is now seeking to reverse much of the reform by pushing legislation at a committee hearing this week to ban on consumable products with quantifiable amounts of THC, industry stakeholders say.

Several sources told Marijuana Moment on Tuesday that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former majority leader in the Senate who led the push for hemp legalization as part of the 2018 Farm Bill, is behind forthcoming language in agriculture spending legislation that would effectively wipe out the consumable hemp product market.

The bill text has not been released at this point, however, and there are efforts within the cannabis space to get it amended before it goes to a vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. Marijuana Moment reached out to McConnell’s office for comment, but representatives did not respond by the time of publication.

Two of the sources said that the hemp provisions will be identical to what the House Appropriations Committee passed late last month, with noted cannabis prohibitionist Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) leading the charge to correct what he’s described as a “loophole” in the Farm Bill that led to the proliferation of consumable—and in certain cases intoxicating—cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC that have gone largely unregulated.

Another source said McConnell is aware that hemp legalization is part of his legacy in the Senate and wants closing the so-called “loophole” that has allowed the proliferation of intoxicating products to be part of that history.

Industry experts say the language wouldn’t just ban controversial hemp products found at gas stations and headshops across the country, however. Based on the House text, it would prohibit all products containing any amount of THC, and the concern is that it would mean even CBD items would likely be banned because it’s extremely rare that the extraction of that non-intoxicating cannabinoid would have no THC.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Marijuana Moment recently that he’s opposed to cannabis language included in the House agriculture appropriations bill that’s now heading to the floor. He said “I think would completely destroy the American hemp industry.”

“I don’t know how you’d be able to sell CBD oil with that,” he the senator said.

While Harris amended report language attached to the bill that clarifies it’s not the intent of the committee to stop people from accessing “industrial or nonintoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoid products with trace or insignificant amounts of THC,” the House bill itself still says that products containing any “quantifiable” amounts of THC couldn’t be marketed. And it’s rare to find CBD items without any natural traces of THC.

Again, while industry sources familiar with the discussions say the Senate version will contain identical language in its current form, the text isn’t publicly available and it’s possible it could be revised ahead of Thursday’s committee markup. But if the language is the same, that would raise serious concerns in the hemp sector, significantly increasing the likelihood that it could be enacted into law.

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Using Hemp Flour And Oil Can Make Gluten-Free Baked Goods With ‘Optimal’ Texture And ‘Significant’ Nutrition, Study Shows

A new study suggests that hemp seed and hemp oil can be made into a promising gluten-free flour mix that offers an “optimal baked texture” along with “significant nutritional impact.”

The research, from a six-person team at the University of Calabria, in Italy, used hemp seed flour and oil to make gluten-free cupcakes, testing various parameters to explore the feasibility of hemp as an alternative flour.

Initially, authors found that replacing butter with hemp oil in a traditional recipe—made with 00 wheat flour—reduced the consistency of the cupcake batter. But when the wheat flour was replaced entirely with hemp flour, the batter’s consistency “was restored.”

“Replacing butter with CBD-enriched hemp oil reduced batter consistency. The subsequent, gradual incorporation of hemp flour led to a further decrease,” the paper, published in the journal Molecules, says. A mix of hemp and maize (corn) flour didn’t meaningfully improve the consistency.

“However, when hemp flour was used exclusively, the consistency of the batter was restored to a level comparable to the traditional formulation,” the study says, “resulting in an optimal baked texture.”

In addition to detailing a process authors described as “an efficient method for extracting CBD-rich oil”—which involves maceration along with the use of microwaves—they found that hemp oil “presents a viable alternative to traditional oils and fats for creating functional foods.”

Evaluating various physical properties of the resulting hemp flour–oil mix, researchers concluded that “hemp oil and hemp flour are viable ingredients for traditional cakes and desserts, notably contributing increased nutritional value through the CBD-enriched hemp oil and the beneficial profile of hemp flour.”

The study comes as more research evaluates the nutritional value of hemp in both humans and animals.

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FDA Plan To Include Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids In Federal Adverse Health Event Reporting System Goes To White House For Approval

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a proposal that aims to better track the health impacts of hemp-derived cannabinoid products by adding CBD and other hemp-derived cannabinoids as selectable options on federal documents used by healthcare professionals, patients and consumers to report adverse events.

Initially unveiled in January, the proposal would revise the “Product Type” field of FDA safety reporting documents to include a selection for “Cannabinoid Hemp Products (such as products containing CBD).” An initial round of comments was open until mid-March.

In a post published in the Federal Register this week, FDA announced that the “proposed collection of information” has now been submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) “for review and clearance.”

The new filing says that two comments were received in the initial round of public feedback supporting the addition of a “cannabinoid hemp product” category “but encouraged FDA to include additional categories as well that would allow for specific data as it pertained to a wider variety of individual products.” A third called for changes to make entries easier by respondents.

“FDA appreciates each comment and although we continue to modify applicable forms to increase the utility of the information collection as our limited resources allow,” the agency said, “we are proposing no other modifications at this time.”

An additional round of feedback is now being accepted on the submission of the information, with comments due by July 25.

The move—designed to more actively gather information about adverse health effects that might be linked to hemp-derived products—comes amid a number of other CBD-focused actions at the federal level and state levels.

Earlier this week, for example, a powerful House committee 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 House Appropriations Committee passed the agriculture appropriations legislation in a 35-27 vote on Monday. It now heads to the Rules Committee to be prepared for floor consideration.

While the panel adopted a manager’s amendment to a report attached to the bill earlier this month that provided clarifying language stating that members did not intend to prohibit non-intoxicating cannabinoid products with “trace or insignificant amounts of THC,” the underlying bill went unchanged, despite the industry’s concerns about the proposal.

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