The Senate Appropriations Committee’ agriculture subcommittee on Tuesday removed language to federally ban intoxicating hemp products from a spending bill after lawmakers couldn’t reach an agreement on the issue, according to a Politico report.
Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul disagreed over the language — McConnell was pushing for a provision added earlier this month that sought to prohibit the sale of intoxicating hemp products, although the language would have delayed the change by one year. But Paul threatened to block the appropriations bill entirely if the language was not removed, arguing that the change would “destroy” the nation’s booming hemp indiustry.
“We could never get agreement between the two,” Senate Appropriations Agriculture-FDA subcommittee Chair John Hoeven (R) said in the report.
McConnell steered the legislation to federally legalize industrial hemp to victory in 2018; however, since then, hemp companies have started to manufacture and sell intoxicating hemp products that contain psychoactive cannabinoids like delta-8 and delta-9 THC. The senator has privately indicated that he would like to undo the so-called “loophole” before his retirement next year, the report said.
McConnell wrote in a July 15 opinion piece published in the Lexington Herald Reader that “rooting out the bad actors and reaffirming our original legislative intent is an important step toward both greater child safety and greater economic certainty.”
Meanwhile, hemp industry advocates praised the junior Kentucky senator for taking a stand on the issue..
“We are deeply grateful to Senator Paul for standing up for the hemp industry,” the U.S. Hemp Roundtable wrote in a statement. “We stand with Rand for his leadership on this issue.”
