American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp Calls on Congress to Regulate Intoxicating Hemp Products

The American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH) last week released a policy paper calling on Congress to pass regulations for intoxicating hemp products including delta-8 and delta-9 THC products. The organization says the products “present a threat to public health and safety.”

In the paper, “Toward Normalized Cannabinoid Regulation, Regulation of Hemp-Synthesized Intoxicants,” ATACH argues that unregulated, intoxicating hemp products exploit consumer confusion on intoxication levels, have no limitations compared to state-legal cannabis markets on advertising or selling to minors, carry no product warnings, or warning on how intoxicating they are, no limits on where or to whom they are sold, and no requirements to understand safety or efficacy of the products.  

Their recommendations and message to Congress and state policymakers include: 

• Amending the definition of hemp to account for regulation for the final product 
• Adopting standards for all intoxicating cannabinoids, whether from marijuana or hemp 
• TTB should regulate intoxicating products in adult-use settings 
• FDA should provide a pathway for non-intoxicating cannabinoids such as CBD 
• State labs should be provided with federal technical assistance 
• Retail sales should be limited to adults 21 or over anywhere intoxicants are available 
• Intoxicating cannabinoid products should be regulated in marijuana programs 
• Regulators should adopt uniform testing and labeling standards 
• Enforcement efforts should be supported, and regulations should promote public health and safety 

In a statement, Chris Ferguson, vice president of Government Affairs for Verano and a former Florida regulator, said while overseeing the state’s medical cannabis program he would “receive complaints from patients who thought they obtained products from a licensed medical dispensary when in fact the product came from a CBD shop.” 

“The marketing of CBD shops added confusion to medical marijuana patients in Florida. We need clear legal definitions, testing protocols, public education campaigns, and inter-agency collaboration to address the challenges with [hemp synthesized intoxicants] and marijuana.” — Ferguson in a press release 

ATACH President Michael Bronstein added that the purpose of cannabis legalization programs “at their heart, is the regulation of intoxicants from the cannabis plant.”   

“Ideally, that is where regulation of all cannabis derived intoxicants should also take place – within the context of a marijuana regulatory program both state and federal,” he said, “and with adult-use cannabis legalized throughout the country.”

The position paper comes as Congress is marking up the 2023 federal Farm Bill. The Farm Bill was the vehicle used in 2014 to legalize hemp federally and in 2018 to allow states to enact their own hemp policies.