Forty states now allow medical use of marijuana, while 24, accounting for most of the U.S. population, also allow recreational use. Yet the federal ban on marijuana, first enacted in 1937, remains in place, which means state-licensed cannabis suppliers still face legal risks and financial burdens stemming from a policy that a large majority of Americans reject. But instead of addressing that increasingly untenable situation by repealing federal marijuana prohibition, the U.S. Senate is bent on expanding the ban to cover psychoactive hemp products.
An appropriations bill that was part of the Senate deal to end the federal shutdown aims to close a loophole opened by the 2018 farm bill, which legalized hemp. That law defined hemp to include any part of the cannabis plant containing less than 0.3 percent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The definition also includes "all [hemp] derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers," as long as their delta-9 THC content is less than 0.3 percent.
