There is no assurance whatsoever that hemp will once again be legalized via the next Farm Bill.
None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Niente.
A profoundly dysfunctional Congress already kicked the can down the road for a year, and by then any opposition to hemp will be well-formed. If not in the Farm Bill, industrial hemp even just grown for fiber reverts to being an illegal Schedule 1 controlled substance, federally.
Natural competitor industries to hemp include timber, lumber, insulation, linen, cotton, soya, corn, sunflower, cement, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals, and those have immense leverage in Washington DC especially with the GOP now in complete power. The GOP has traditionally never been friendly to hemp in any way, shape or form.
State-regulated marijuana businesses are also opposed in principle to hemp farms upwind of their grows, have had five years to assess the impact of pollen on their operations, hate with a burning passion the new “hemp THC” movement, and they have lobbyists in DC.
Then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who championed hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill, has since stepped-down from that role and is retiring in 2026.
The every-five-years Farm Bill is a vulnerable way to legalize what was a Schedule 1 controlled substance for 81 years. Perhaps that’s why they used the Farm Bill to legalize hemp, to give it a 5-year trial run?
We need true legalization if this is ever to become a real ag crop, we need “our” XXIst Amendment, “our” DSHEA.
It would be an unfortunate time to not renew hemp in America, with massive tariffs levied against the two largest hemp exporters to the U.S., China and Canada.
Note that Colorado’s Amendment X passed in 2018 which took the 0.3% max THC protection from the state Constitution and handed it to the Feds. In hindsight, it was done in anticipation of the hemp legalization which occurred later that year, but at 0.3% not the expected 1% max THC.
But that also means our people got it wrong. The campaign at the time was handled clumsily and divided state hempsters between those of us who think taking away any 10A protection is a bad idea, and those who thought they were special enough to have the inside scoop (but weren’t).
Keep your fingers crossed that hemp doesn’t become the latest victim in the phony culture wars designed to divide and conquer us for fun and profit but mostly profit. With madmen at the wheel, anything could happen and probably will.