The Lawful Hemp Protection Act Is a Lifeline, But It Leaves THCA Flower Behind

Congress finally has a serious bipartisan alternative to the federal hemp ban scheduled to take effect this November.

On July 22, Representatives Andy Barr of Kentucky and Angie Craig of Minnesota introduced the Lawful Hemp Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that would repeal the hemp-killing provisions Congress enacted last year and replace them with a federal regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoid products. The bill addresses age restrictions, testing, manufacturing, labeling, domestic sourcing, taxes, product potency, interstate transportation, and other matters. 

This is important legislation. Representatives Barr and Craig deserve substantial credit for rejecting prohibition and recognizing that the hemp industry should be regulated rather than destroyed.

Unfortunately, the bill does not go far enough.

Most significantly, its new definition of hemp would include THCA in a one-percent total-THC limit. That provision would eliminate the lawful THCA flower market, one of the largest, most important, and most economically vital sectors of the hemp industry.

The bill is a major step forward. It should move forward. But it should also be amended.

Why this bill matters now

Congress created the modern hemp industry in 2014 and expanded it through the 2018 Farm Bill. In November 2025, however, Congress abruptly reversed course.

The new federal provisions scheduled to take effect on November 12, 2026, generally exclude finished products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container from the definition of hemp. The calculation includes THCA and certain other cannabinoids deemed to have, or marketed as having, effects similar to THC. Four-tenths of a milligram per container is not a meaningful product standard. It is a prohibition threshold. 

The restriction threatens not only intoxicating hemp products but also many ordinary full-spectrum CBD products that contain naturally occurring trace amounts of THC. Manufacturers cannot simply remove every trace of THC from a full-spectrum extract without fundamentally changing the product consumers want, or while remaining lawful. 

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act would expressly repeal that provision. That provision alone makes the bill one of the most important pieces of federal hemp legislation since the 2018 Farm Bill. 

The bill gets the central policy question right

The bill starts from the correct premise: adult access and consumer protection can coexist. In some respects, this bill advances the ball towards an ultimate one-plant solution. 

I have long advocated sensible cannabis regulation called the Three Pillars:

1. Keep products away from minors.
2. Require standardized testing and quality control.
3. Require clear, uniform labeling and packaging so adults know what they are purchasing.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act incorporates all three concepts.

It would prohibit sales to people under 21, require standardized manufacturing and finished-product testing by ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratories, mandate cannabinoid and serving disclosures, require QR-code access to certificates of analysis, impose warnings concerning pregnancy and impaired driving, and prohibit advertising and packaging directed at children. It would also require hemp-derived cannabinoid products sold in interstate commerce to be cultivated, processed, finished, packaged, and labeled in the United States.

These are real guardrails, and they are fundamentally different from the 0.4-milligram ban.

Responsible hemp businesses do not oppose regulation. They oppose rules that pretend to regulate a market while actually eliminating it.

What the Lawful Hemp Protection Act would do

The 60-page bill is broad, but its major provisions can be summarized fairly simply.

It would:

• Replace the impending 0.4-milligram-per-container standard with a definition of hemp allowing up to one percent total THC, including THCA, on a dry-weight basis;
• Create separate categories for industrial hemp, unfinished hemp-cannabinoid ingredients, and finished consumer products;
• Permit certain unfinished ingredients to exceed one percent total THC during processing (ie, “work in progress” or “WIP” hemp extract), provided they remain within a licensed supply chain and are not sold to consumers;
• Establish an express federal food and dietary-supplement framework for hemp-derived cannabinoid products;
• Require FDA to establish maximum cannabinoid amounts by product and serving;
• Impose fallback limits of five milligrams of total THC per serving for oral products and 50 milligrams per serving for inhalable and topical products if FDA fails to act within 12 months;
• Exclude certain non-naturally occurring and artificially modified cannabinoids;
• Establish Treasury permitting, taxation, inventory, reporting, and inspection requirements;
• Create a mandatory three-tier system for hemp-derived beverages;
• Preserve states’ authority to enact stricter laws; and
• Prevent states from blocking compliant products that are merely being transported through their territory.

The U.S. Hemp Roundtable calls the bill a major step toward replacing prohibition with regulation. I agree with that general assessment. I also agree that Congress should move quickly, since the November deadline remains in place unless federal law changes.

The details, however, matter.

The one-percent standard kills THCA flower

At first glance, increasing the hemp threshold from 0.3 percent delta-9 THC to one percent THC may sound like a major expansion.

It is not, at least not for THCA flower.

The current federal definition focuses on delta-9 THC concentration. The Lawful Hemp Protection Act would instead use total THC, expressly including THCA. Since THCA converts into delta-9 THC when heated, commercial THCA flower ordinarily contains total-THC concentrations many times higher than one percent.

As a result, the bill would resolve the long-running legal debate about THCA flower decisively against the hemp industry. Flower exceeding one percent total THC would no longer be hemp, regardless of whether its delta-9 THC concentration remains below the current 0.3-percent limit.

For CBD and CBG farmers, the one-percent threshold may provide additional cultivation flexibility. That is helpful. For THCA flower farmers, processors, distributors, and retailers, however, the bill is effectively a federal prohibition.

That is a major problem.

THCA flower is not a marginal or insignificant segment. It supports farmers, processors, laboratories, wholesalers, retailers, logistics companies, and thousands of other small businesses. Consumers clearly want it. Eliminating this sector will not eliminate demand for cannabis flower. It will simply redirect consumers toward state marijuana markets where available, or toward unregulated illicit markets where they are not.

That is not consumer protection.

Congress should create a lawful, adult-only pathway for THCA flower based on rigorous testing, accurate potency disclosures, child-resistant packaging where appropriate, responsible marketing, and meaningful enforcement. It should not use the definition of hemp to erase the category altogether.

A regulatory bill that preserves gummies and beverages while sacrificing natural cannabis flower is incomplete. It ignores the natural plant itself, an enormous sector of the hemp market, and one of the largest (perhaps the largest) sectors of hemp consumers.

The milligram limits are too low

The bill directs FDA to establish maximum amounts for:

• Total cannabinoid content per product and serving; and
• Each individual cannabinoid per product and serving.

That authority is extraordinarily broad. It appears to allow FDA to impose limits not merely on intoxicating THC, but also on CBD, CBG, CBC, and other nonintoxicating cannabinoids.

Congress should not give FDA open-ended authority to impose commercially unworkable limits on every cannabinoid found in hemp. Any limits should be tied to actual evidence concerning the specific cannabinoid, product form, route of administration, and intended consumer population.

If FDA fails to act within 12 months, the bill’s fallback limit for orally consumed products would be five milligrams of total THC per serving. That may be appropriate for some new consumers, but it is too low as a mandatory ceiling for the entire adult market.

Adults differ in body chemistry, experience, tolerance, metabolism, and intended use. A national system can require clear serving information and prevent accidental overconsumption without pretending that one low dose is appropriate for every adult.

The 50-milligram fallback for inhalable products also raises practical questions. What constitutes a “serving” of loose flower or a vapor product? Unlike a gummy or beverage, an inhalable product does not necessarily arrive in naturally divided servings. A serving-based standard that is not objectively defined invites inconsistent testing and enforcement.

Congress should raise the fallback limits, distinguish carefully among product forms, and ensure that FDA cannot use cannabinoid limits as a backdoor prohibition.

The tax structure may be excessive

Regulation costs money, and a reasonable federal tax may be appropriate to fund enforcement and consumer protection. The bill’s tax provisions, however, deserve closer scrutiny.

It would impose:

• A tax of five cents for each milligram of THC in a hemp-derived beverage;
• A five-percent tax based on the sale price of other hemp-derived cannabinoid products; and
• A separate five-percent tax on manufacturers’ gross sales revenue.

The statutory text appears to layer the product-level tax with the manufacturer-revenue tax. If so, businesses could face cumulative federal taxes before accounting for state excise taxes, sales taxes, licensing fees, testing expenses, compliance costs, and ordinary income taxes.

Heavy taxes do not eliminate demand. They increase retail prices and make unlicensed products more competitive. That lesson should be obvious from state marijuana markets.

Congress should fund legitimate oversight without creating a tax structure that favors the largest companies and makes compliance uneconomical for small and regional operators.

The beverage distribution system could become a gatekeeper

The bill would require hemp-derived beverages to move through a strict three-tier system separating manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. A person generally could not hold an interest in more than one tier, and the bill would impose alcohol-style tied-house restrictions.

There may be legitimate reasons to regulate commercial relationships between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. But Congress should not assume that a distribution system designed around alcohol is automatically appropriate for hemp beverages.

Mandatory three-tier distribution can increase costs, restrict direct market access, and place substantial power in the hands of a limited number of wholesalers. Small beverage manufacturers may be required to surrender margins and control simply to reach retailers.

At a minimum, Congress should consider small-producer exceptions, self-distribution rights, direct-to-consumer pathways, and safeguards preventing distributors from becoming private gatekeepers to the national market.

Regulation should protect small businesses, not merely reserve seats for them in a market controlled by larger intermediaries.

Several parts of the bill are genuinely excellent

The shortcomings should not obscure the bill’s important achievements.

First, it would repeal the impending federal hemp ban rather than merely postpone it. 

Second, it would finally create an express federal regulatory category for hemp-derived cannabinoid products. FDA has spent years insisting that common cannabinoid products are legally problematic while refusing to establish a workable pathway for them. The bill would force the federal government to regulate the market that already exists.

Third, the unfinished-ingredient provisions recognize the practical reality that cannabinoid concentrations may temporarily exceed finished-product limits during extraction and manufacturing. Allowing those materials to remain within a licensed commercial chain is far more sensible than treating normal work-in-process material as contraband.

Fourth, the testing, labeling, age-control, and certificate-of-analysis provisions are consistent with responsible industry practices.

Fifth, the bill protects interstate transportation. States could still prohibit or restrict sales within their borders, but they could not block compliant products merely passing through. That is an important protection, particularly for carriers and businesses operating between lawful markets.

Finally, the bill supports domestic agriculture. Requiring products sold through the federal framework to originate from hemp cultivated and processed in the United States should create meaningful opportunities for American farmers, provided Congress also protects the products that make hemp farming economically viable.

What Congress should change

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act should be amended in four principal ways.

First, protect THCA flower. Congress should create a regulated adult-use category for natural hemp flower rather than excluding it through a one-percent total-THC definition.

Second, establish reasonable potency rules. The fallback limits should be increased and adapted to different product forms. FDA’s authority should focus on cannabinoids that present evidence-based safety concerns, not extend without meaningful limits to every nonintoxicating cannabinoid.

Third, revise the taxes and distribution requirements. The bill should avoid duplicative federal taxes and should include pathways that allow small manufacturers and beverage companies to compete without mandatory dependence on entrenched intermediaries.

Fourth, retain the bill’s strong guardrails. The 21-and-over rule, testing requirements, truthful labeling, domestic sourcing, responsible packaging, adverse-event reporting, and interstate transportation protections should remain.

These amendments would strengthen the bill without abandoning its central structure.

My view

Representatives Barr and Craig deserve applause for introducing a serious bipartisan bill at a critical moment.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act recognizes that prohibition is the wrong answer. It would preserve a national hemp industry, establish long-overdue federal standards, protect minors, improve product quality, and give responsible businesses a lawful pathway forward.

Those accomplishments are significant. But a lifeline that leaves one of the industry’s largest sectors outside the boat is not enough.

THCA flower is cannabis flower. It is natural, consumers want it, and eliminating its lawful market will not make it disappear. Congress should regulate it responsibly rather than force it into state marijuana systems or illicit commerce.

Likewise, potency limits, taxes, and distribution requirements must be designed around real consumers and real small businesses, not around political fears, federal agency preferences, or systems borrowed wholesale from other industries.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act is the right conversation and a strong starting point. The sponsors should be thanked, the bill should be supported, and Congress should improve it before enactment.

The hemp industry does not need another prohibition disguised as regulation. It needs durable federal rules based on adult access, consumer safety, informed choice, and a fair opportunity for small businesses to survive.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act moves us closer to that goal. Congress should finish the job. 

July 22, 2026