Legal weed senators were voting for it because their constituents include people growing legal weed. The hemp product market competes with these constituents.
The anti-weed senators were voting for it because they are anti-weed.
Most senators who vote on this bill are not voting on the basis of the hemp thing in either direction. That's why all the headlines are about the tactic of sneaking it into a "too big to fail" budget bill.
There was an opportunity for this bit to be removed from the bill.
76 of 100 voted to keep it. This, is like, literally the entire point of discussion in this part of the thread? I don't understand where your confusion lies.
Are you saying it was an amendment? That it not what I get from this or any articles I've seen about it.
TFA:
> On Sunday, Senate leadership inserted a hemp-recriminalization clause into the must-pass funding bill
> ...
> Not a standalone bill. Not a debate on cannabis reform.
Seems like it wasn't a full Senate vote on a specific amendment, but the bill as a whole. I've elsewhere seen it stated as McConnell acting alone.
Edit: as I googled around, I found that Rand Paul attempted to use an amendment to remove the language, and it failed. But people vote on amendments for all sorts of strategic reasons. For example maybe they felt the amendment would kill the bill, because house and senate bills need to match, and the terms had already been negotiated.
> For example maybe they felt the amendment would kill the bill, because house and senate bills need to match, and the terms had already been negotiated.
I don't recall ever hearing of reconciliation being a deal-breaker.
Also, if Senate leadership inserted the clause, that means that it wasn't in the House's version to begin with.
The product being sold at your local dispensary is produced, marketed, distributed, and sold by an entirely different chain of businesses and people than the product being sold at your local head shop.
THCa/Delta8/similar products are produced under an oversight in the hemp legislation and different businesses are taking advantage of that than those involved in the legal marijuana trade.
Hemp is classified as below .3% THC (compared to old-school weed strains at 15% and modern levels at mid 30%s). Hemp is male and female, and trash in potency, but THC and other products derived from it are fair game in some jurisdictions, or a grey area.
It is certainly a different market than legal, high potency THC, as well as medical.
> compared to old-school weed strains at 15% and modern levels at mid 30%s)
These levels are still primarily based on THCa content, not Delta9 THC. Even your regulated legal flower is very low in D9 THC.
> It is certainly a different market than legal, high potency THC, as well as medical.
Much of it is literally the exact same. They are growing the exact same strains and cultivars as the regulated legal marijuana industry, just making sure to harvest and process them in a way that prevents the decarboxylation of THCa into D9 THC from going over .3%
> how is hemp competing with weed? Are these different plants?
I live in Wyoming, where weed remains technically illegal. The 'legal' weed is trucked in from Montanta and sold at farmers' markets. The hemp is sold at the liquor store check-out counter.
I'm surprised a lot of people missed this, but hemp growth actually causes thc plants to lower their cbd because of unexpected pollination. you can't grow them in the open near each other
The hemp products in question are not, like, hemp rope. They're just pot that is classified as hemp because they are harvested and processed in such a way that keeps the D9 THC below .3% at the time of testing.
If you were to go look at a growing operation for someone making THCa flower and then go look at a growing operation for someone making regulated legal marijuana, they would be virtually indistinguishable.
The humorous part though, is that the 'legal' growers screaming about the 'unregulated' competition and for this law, are actually the outlaws breaking federal law and totally non-scrutinized by federal regulation (other than the fact it's outright illegal).
It is the absolute worst case of gas lighting. The literal, federally unregulated criminals were screeching that the people obeying the law and following the regulations (even if in a way legislators didn't expect) were unregulated cowboys who were 'skirting the law.'
It's absolutely comical if you think about it. And somehow, this argument actually won.
Many of the state legalized programs do have significantly higher standards because they are explicitly regulating for things intended to be consumed by humans, while the federal regulations for hemp are focused in an entirely different area.
As a consumer, I would prefer to be purchasing the more stringently regulated state-legalized product. But that would require I live in a state that has legalized it.
Instead, my options are (at least for another year), purchase the less stringently regulated "hemp" products or the entirely unregulated stuff grown god knows where by god knows who with no recourse if it turns out they've been spraying their crop with leftover lead arsenate.
They are the same species, but it's a Brussel-sprouts vs Broccoli type situation where they started as the same plant but have been selectively bred for different purposes
The THCa/Delta8 stuff is not brussel-sprouts vs. broccoli. They difference is in timing around harvest and process. They're growing many of the exact same cultivars as what is sold in a proper dispensary (and indeed, much of what is sold in dispensaries would actually qualify because they actually have very low levels of Delta9 in them)
You can effectively just under-cure the exact same plant and get something that comes in under the limit.
They were taking very low % hemp that is supposed to be for textiles and extracting the little THC there was into low quality vapes. Because they didn't need the state growers licenses to grow hemp, there was no mechanism to test for pesticides and such. When we do have all that infrastructure for legal THC regulation, why allow people to sidestep all that?
> They were taking very low % hemp that is supposed to be for textiles and extracting the little THC there was into low quality vapes.
This is not at all what was happening. These aren't some special strains or cultivars where there is a remnant of THC that is getting squeezed out from a large quantity of plants to make a small quantity of product - they are same strains and cultivars being used by the legal dispensaries. It is a matter of timing and process - harvest and undercure the flower and it will not have converted enough THCa to Delta9 THC to hit the legal limit. In fact, many legal operations follow similar timing on harvesting and similar processing - the flower in your local dispensary is still mostly THCa, and a good chunk of it is likely under the limit for D9 THC as well.
Much if it is effectively the exact same thing under a different label.
> When we do have all that infrastructure for legal THC regulation, why allow people to sidestep all that?
I do agree here. There's no need for the unregulated market when a proper legal market exists.
I'm not sure I understand how this is particularly nefarious. It complies with the law as written, and results in a significantly better product for those choosing to consume it.
>I'm not sure I understand how this is particularly nefarious. It complies with the law as written, and results in a significantly better product for those choosing to consume it.
Perhaps "nefarious" is too strong a term, but the intent (at least in states that have legal cannabis) AFAICT, is to avoid the regulations around testing for adulterants, potency, etc.
In most states with legalized cannabis, testing for a variety of harmful ingredients and the potency of specific products is required for those taking part in the legalized cannabis trade.
Those growing, packaging and distributing "hemp" products are not subject to such testing regulations.
That may not be nefarious, but avoiding such regulation increases the likelihood of harmful additives (chemical pesticides and other adulterants) and unknown potencies. This would likely increase the chances that unscrupulous vendors will sell (knowingly or unknowingly) harmful/dangerous products.
And given that the products are essentially the same, that gives those who don't have to pay for testing or go through the marketplaces defined by state laws, giving those folks an advantage over those who follow state law.
What's more, folks who avoid extant law through this loophole, are not incentivized to make safe, tested products.
So maybe not "nefarious," but certainly anti-consumer with perverse incentives to create and sell harmful products.
If it was a textile-style-hemp farmer getting the last few bucks out of their crop via a loophole, that I can understand. Not great, but I can rationalize it.
Someone growing the same plant that is regulated by California but decides they don't need testing or licenses is just plain anti-social. You can't not know you're doing something wrong in that case.
I don't understand how this has anything to do with federal hemp law, under federal law marijuana doesn't have any testing requirements either as it's just plain illegal. So what does California have to gain in testing by dumping hemp into the marijuana bucket at a federal level, neither of which improves the testing requirements in California? California could simply require hemp to be tested, but making hemp federally illegal does nothing on that point.
The only answer I can think of is that hemp grown outside of California was competing with california 'legal' weed, the testing angle is non-sensical since this change in law moves hemp from 'kind of required to be tested (but none of the DEA testing implemented, so it's done privately and sometimes not at all), but poorly' to 'illegal' and marijuana still at 'illegal'.
In general this kind of excuse is used by incumbents to pass laws to thwart competition.
You have some regulatory framework which has already been created by captured regulators, so it has a couple of rules that it ought to have (always the ones pointed to in order to justify it) and then others that exist merely to exclude competitors or make sure fixed costs are high enough that only large incumbents can meet them.
The latter set of rules are unreasonable so the market finds a way around them. The incumbents then call this a "loophole" and insist that the competitors be forced into the entire framework rather than just the subset of reasonable rules they'd be able to satisfy without being destroyed. Which destroys them, as intended.
The anti-weed senators were voting for it because they are anti-weed.