Republicans want to close a “hemp loophole” that they say has helped fuel a market of intoxicating hemp products, but they’ve been having a difficult time getting on the same page about how to proceed.
Kentucky GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul found themselves on opposite sides of a proposal to address the matter before the Senate left for recess, forcing senators to remove a provision closing the loophole from funding legislation.
“I think there is a great willingness to solve that problem, but there’s a lot of different ideas as to how you do it,” Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) told The Hill shortly before senators headed home for August recess.
His comments came shortly after the Senate passed a bipartisan bill funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for fiscal 2026 — minus a proposal pushed by McConnell that sought to close a “loophole” that lawmakers unintentionally created in the 2018 farm bill, which legalized hemp production.
McConnell, who led the Senate GOP conference at the time, notably pushed for establishing the crop as an agricultural product. But in the years since, the senator has criticized companies he’s accused of “exploiting” the farm legislation by “taking legal amounts of THC (or tetrahydrocannabinol) from hemp and turning it into intoxicating substances.”
He and other Republicans have also cited the need for changes, while raising concern about THC poisoning from hemp-derived products among children.
“From the tobacco buyout program to tax relief for the sale of farmland, I’ve made sure our farmers have the tools they need to be successful in volatile markets,” McConnell said from the Senate floor in late July. “My language would not have changed that. This language would have remained in the appropriations package had one senator not derailed the process.”
Days after McConnell’s remarks, the Courier-Journal published an opinion piece authored by Paul that pushed against letting “McConnell outlaw the hemp industry.”
He specifically took aim at language he said would criminalize hemp products if they contained only a “‘quantifiable amount’ of THC, as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.”
“My concern is that this non-specific law could be interpreted to mean zero THC, which would not only be nearly impossible to produce, but also may have no customer base,” he wrote.
Paul noted that current federal regulations allows hemp production with plants that have “a 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration, a level so low that it is extremely unlikely to result in a high.”
“The hemp industry has warned that completely prohibiting a naturally occurring substance will destroy the industry, in part because customers likely buy these products for the perceived health benefits of low levels of THC.”
Paul has said that he will continue to work with McConnell, as well as members on the House side, on a path forward.
In the lower chamber, House Republicans included similar language in their annual USDA and FDA funding bill that advocates warn could lead to a ban on most hemp products.
“The challenge here is that the proponents of a ban are kind of exaggerating what this ‘hemp loophole’ is and what they’re saying is that hemp was only intended to be a fiber and grain, and for clothing and plastics, etc, which certainly is a big part of that,” Jonathan Martin, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, said in an interview.
But he argued that the 2018 farm bill was “quite explicit that it defined hemp to include, not only the fiber and grain, but also hemp extracts, cannabinoids and derivatives and all of those words were inserted.”
“There’s been a huge influx of hemp beverages that’s become a really exciting new market for hemp farmers to share their wares and so we’ve seen, all across the country,” he said. “You go to liquor stores, or sometimes convenience stores, and purchase these hemp beverages, and this legislation out there, the McConnell legislation, or over in the House side, which was championed by [senior appropriator] Andy Harris would put that all to bed.”
McConnell said before recess that he allowed his language to be stripped from the Senate funding bill so as not to hold up a larger package of fiscal 2026 spending legislation that ultimately passed the upper chamber.
But he has said he won’t let up on the effort targeting intoxicating hemp-derived products, while pointing to research showing an increase in cannabis-related poisonings among minors in Kentucky in recent years.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), head of the subcommittee that crafted the annual funding bill, said last month he supports McConnell’s plan, though he is pushing for more “safeguards on the sale of hemp and hemp products, or cannabis oil.”
“We’ll keep working on it,” he said at the time, though he added that he’s open to potential avenues to improve the proposal if they arise.
Boozman, who is also a senior appropriator, said there’s still “a possibility” that the House and Senate can work out an agreement to close the “loophole” when it comes time for both chambers to craft a fiscal 2026 funding deal.
“There’s a possibility of getting it figured out as we conference with the House. It’s in their bill. So, we might be able to modify that some,” Boozman said, though he added lawmakers might have to “find a different vehicle.”
He and other Republicans have also called for the FDA to do more to regulate the products.
“I actually think the FDA has the authority now to do it,” Boozman told The Hill. “So there’s just a lot of different ideas, but it is something that needs to be done. It’s all about protecting young people right now.”
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