U.S. trade group plays loose with facts in a whining letter to Trump

When Donald Trump recently re-tweeted a CBD hype video, the U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR) moved fast. Within days, the group sent a fawning letter assuming the voice of “the hemp industry,” whispering through Dear Leader’s fuzzy ear, into the void.  

But what USHR represents today isn’t hemp. It’s mostly a gray-market business in sketchy, synthetic THC substances, built on a leaky regulatory system. It’s an ugly baby, born of greed and cynicism.

At the heart of USHR are CBD producers, many of whom feed the intoxicating hemp sector downstream. Roughly one-third of them are now directly selling intoxicating hemp products: delta-8 and hemp-derived delta-9 THC edibles, vapes, and drinks that deliver recreational doses of synthetic THC as they pass through a loophole in the original 2018 “Hemp Farm Bill.”

Intoxicating hemp has become the economic engine of the CBD sector (and no doubt the USHR). We’ve written about it — and warned about it — for years.

‘Dear Sir’

“By signing the 2018 Farm Bill into law, you ushered in a new era for the American hemp industry,” begins the Oct. 6 letter to Trump.  “We are grateful and remain hopeful that your influence can save the $28.4 billion hemp industry that you helped make possible.”

While the letter is nauseating on its surface, the more troubling aspect lies in its exaggeration and deliberate sleight of hand. It never once mentions CBD, cannabinoids, or intoxicating products, employing “hemp” exclusively as though the word alone could sanitize the reality USHR is pimping for — a dodgy intoxicant market built on unregulated and potentially dangerous substances and products.

This isn’t an accident. It’s deliberate branding. By cloaking intoxicating hemp in the mantle of “hemp,” USHR hijacks the moniker of an entire movement to give cover to a twisted dwarf sub-industry while ignoring the true value and full potential of industrial hemp as a sustainable, versatile crop far beyond cannabinoids.  

This doesn’t just confuse the public — it distorts policy debates, scares off investors, and hands opponents of hemp an easy talking point. It results in guilt-by-association and undermines the credibility that “true hemp” sectors have spent years trying to build.

False, damaging 

“Congress is close to passing a hemp ban” that would “wipe out 95% of the industry,” the letter suggests. That’s false. Congress is not close to banning hemp. Lawmakers are struggling to address the unregulated intoxicating hemp monster that USHR adopted and fostered. 

While the $28.4 billion figure is plucked from the air, it may be accurate to say that “95%” of the “hemp” market might be at risk.  That market consists of intoxicating products that would likely be curtailed or eliminated if the definition of hemp were tightened. That’s not destroying hemp. That’s cleaning up an out-of-control intoxicant trade.

By even talking about “hemp” in the same breath as “ban,” damage is done to the real hemp sector. Every time that framing is repeated, it plants the idea that the entire industry is illicit or at risk. It collapses the distinction between legitimate agricultural and industrial producers and the gray-market intoxicant trade, lumping farmers, builders, and food producers in with gummy peddlers. 

Origin story

None of this framing is accidental. It reflects USHR’s evolution over the past five years. From 2018 through 2023, USHR’s certification arm, the U.S. Hemp Authority (USHA), focused on CBD wellness products, grain, and personal care items. Intoxicating cannabinoid products were explicitly ineligible for certification. After the CBD boom that began in 2019 quickly turned into a harsh bust, hemp cannabinoid companies shifted to the makers of illicit intoxicants, which are produced from CBD and sold outside state cannabis systems.

 In October 2024, USHA launched an “Adult Use Hemp Product Certification Program.” Overnight, the same organization that once excluded intoxicating products accepted them under a different standard. It was purely about survival: intoxicating hemp represented the main revenue source. 

Remove banks, trade groups, service providers, and other non-hemp companies from USHR’s current roster, and about 60 members remain—nearly all in CBD. This membership includes roughly 15 companies that market products that deliver 5–10 mg of THC per serving – enough to get you high.

Meanwhile, fiber and grain industries—fundamentals of a true hemp industry—are barely visible within the organization. They are mentioned occasionally in policy documents but lack serious legislative campaigns or public advocacy. 

Indefensible

USHR claims it has “done the right thing with self-regulation” in the letter to Trump. The irony is vivid. The organization invokes responsibility while overseeing a marketplace marked by the absence of real oversight. A voluntary certification is not regulation; it’s a marketing tool. 

To date, there is no known public record that USHR or USHA has ever suspended, sanctioned, or publicly criticized a member for non-conformance — either during the early CBD era, or after the organization embraced intoxicating hemp. Even as some members’ products become indistinguishable from those in regulated cannabis outlets, their so-called “self-regulation” remains all on paper – a flimsy shield to ward off scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators, allowing business as usual.

USHR is now powered by a cannabinoid sector that owes its survival to intoxicating hemp. That’s who they’re fighting for — not fiber, not grain, and not the long-term credibility of hemp as an agricultural commodity. By invoking “hemp” as though they speak for the whole sector, they appropriate the industry’s history and legitimacy to defend a narrow, illegitimate commercial agenda. That may serve their short-term business interests. But it makes them the wrong people to shape federal hemp policy.