Draft bill in U.S. would wipe out intoxicants, rescue CBD, but what about ‘true hemp’?

The original draft of Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr’s Lawful Hemp Protection Act (LHPA) amending the 2018 Farm Bill, which surfaced earlier this month, offers at least a little hope that hemp can move on down the line.

As with several recent hemp bills, the LHPA is mostly focused on the cannabis industry’s war over cannabinoids — with trade groups filing letters and lobbyists chiming in as they try to salvage something from the “intoxicating hemp” market run amok.

Legitimate aims

For what’s there in the original draft, good on Rep. Barr. The bill would mostly shut down the synthetic intoxicant economy that has spent years putting the stink on hemp, but also carve out a lawful lane for “wellness” CBD.

Cleaning up the gas-station kiddie treats is a legitimate aim. But what about some real legislative support to build real markets for fiber, food and feed?

Staggering

The 2018 Farm Bill opened a door that should have led to fields of waving hemp acres, grain elevators and processors, and the entire fiber production infrastructure, especially for sustainable building materials.

Instead it led to a gray-market intoxicant economy that cost the sector years of credibility and political goodwill – as true hemp was left to stagger forward.

The hemp boom? Industrial hemp? It hasn’t happened yet, if it ever will.

The loud ones

When it comes to the debate over Barr’s bill, it’s the usual players chiming in. In one corner is HIFA, a shady-looking pop-up “astro-turf” interest group that wants the illicit intoxicant sector legalized, normalized and regulated — but with broad commercial latitude.

Then there’s an ad hoc group that thanked Barr for the bill in a letter urging him to add language that would allow intoxicating hemp beverages if they are treated like alcohol. Hemp-specific signatories are the U.S. Hemp Roundtable and the National Industrial Hemp Council of America (NIHC).

A third force makes no pretense of its aims: licensed marijuana operators under ATACH, who want intoxicating hemp eliminated altogether because it undercuts their state-regulated products. Their preferred outcome is removal — and they have a point.

Orphaned

But the industrial side of hemp has been policy-orphaned through every legislative cycle, passed over as the cannabinoid debate always took up all the available oxygen. Washington has shown little meaningful progress in creating pathways that can deliver benefits from the full industrial potential of the hemp plant.

Hemp in the 21^st century should be about high-value food and the almost unimaginable potential of the simple hemp stalk in literally hundreds of leading-edge applications, in major global industries. Cleaner stuff! Imagine it!

Let’s move on

Some of what Barr’s bill proposes makes sense on its own terms. Synthetic intoxicants deserve regulatory scrutiny, and products marketed toward youth deserve zero tolerance — those provisions are worth preserving in any version that moves forward.

But if the next chapter of U.S. hemp law is limited to protecting slices of the existing CBD and hemp-THC trade, then it’s clear Washington has learned nothing from the past seven years.

Hemp has a genuine long-term future — but it does not run through a gas-station cooler. Let them have their adult beverages if that’s where this lands. Then get around to writing laws that actually support farmers, processors and manufacturers doing truly industrial hemp.