www.statnews.com/…
First, bit of history:
In 2018, Congress passed language that legalized hemp products up to a specific and low concentration of marijuana’s naturally occurring, high-inducing compound: delta-9 THC. But the cannabis industry pounced on what lawmakers left unsaid. Soon after, the market flooded with products featuring similar, synthetically derived THCs, delta-8 and delta-10, which the bill did not specifically prohibit.
Fast forward to 2025: The Senate inserted an amendment to the House passed bill to reopen the government that repealed the 2018 bill that legalized the creation of hemp based industry, which allowed hemp products to be sold if they contained no more than 0.03% of the intoxicating THC (Delta 9 THC). This amendment took aim at, not only the low THC products, but also hemp/cannabis products that contain enough THC to be intoxicating.
The new language, as it currently stands, would bar all intoxicating THC products, reverting to the pre-2018 status quo in which all forms of marijuana were considered illegal, controlled substances. Notably, its low cap on THC concentration would also bar many non-intoxicating CBD products like oils and gummies.
It should be noted that the Federal government never legalized marijuana, although 40 states have passed medical marijuana statutes and 24 of them legalized marijuana completely for adult, non-medical use.
“Hemp-derived products are completely unregulated, and that’s a very dangerous situation,” said Peter Grinspoon, a physician and Harvard Medical School instructor who advocates for the legalization and regulation of marijuana. “There are certainly some ethical companies out there, but generally speaking, if it’s not regulated, it’s going to be dangerous. They’ve done tests, for example, on delta-8 vapes, and found random industrial byproducts.”
It’s also not uncommon, Grinspoon said, for people to buy what they believe to be non-intoxicating CBD products that turn out to have noticeably high levels of THC, or for true potency of THC products to be mislabeled.
Medical marijuana gives relief to a wide swath of patients suffering from the effects of chemotherapy, chronic pain, PTSD, fibromyalgia, anxiety, colitis, insomnia and MS. In recent years, a crisis of opioid and methamphetamine overdoses has raged across the country, federal law enforcement has been content to focus on that, leaving the state regulated cannabis industry to mostly operate on its own.
Now that the Senate has inserted the repeal of the 2018 law; and the House and Senate have both passed the revised bill to reopen the government, the stage is set for a crackdown on medical marijuana.
This is not a fait accompli just yet, the new law is not set to take effect until late in 2026, so there is time for the act to be further amended and ameliorated. But, the well established doctrine of the supremacy of federal law over state law provides ample authority for a renewed emphasis of marijuana enforcement.
