Yes, the Mary Miller Amendment Will Kill the ENTIRE Hemp Industry, Including Industrial Hemp
When the Mary Miller Amendment (MMA) passed the House Agriculture Committee, I wrote an article about how it is specifically designed to kill the hemp cannabinoid industry. Unfortunately, and even though this industry generated $28 billion in revenue last year, there are groups that want it dead, including a small cartel of marijuana corporate conglomerates who seek to destroy the hemp industry so they can control the entire cannabis supply chain to the exclusion of small hemp businesses. In addition to deploying millions of dollars into lobbying efforts to shut down the hemp industry, these conglomerates have launched a massive disinformation campaign about hemp products and child safety that is largely bereft of substantive factual support.
But that’s not all. In addition to killing the hemp cannabinoid industry, the MMA will also kill the industrial hemp industry. Aside from the marijuana cartel, there are others who do not care about the hemp cannabinoid industry but who do care about industrial hemp. These groups are fine with the MMA because, to their understanding, it does not impact “industrial” hemp. This view is not only incorrect, but it is a direct result of the disinformation campaign referenced above. To be clear, the MMA will kill all hemp, including “industrial hemp”. This is because the MMA does the following:
- It changes the definition of “hemp” so that total THC must not exceed 0.3%. Some people have argued that the MMA merely codifies current USDA policy in measuring THC in the field. That’s not true because the MMA goes well beyond measuring THC in the field to making a sweeping change to the current definition of “hemp” in the Farm Bill. Contrary to popular belief, THCa, the non-psychoactive precursor to THC, is not mentioned in the Farm Bill’s definition of hemp. Importantly, it is not part of the legal “metric” for determining whether cannabis material is lawful “hemp”. In fact, the opposite is true. The current definition of hemp specifically includes its “acids”. (THCa is one of many acids the plant produces. The “a” in THCA stands for “acid”.) The only statutory reference to THCa in the Farm Bill is via an inference. The Farm Bill directs the USDA to use a “post-decarboxylation” method to test hemp in the field. This means that a hemp crop cannot be harvested unless it passes a total THC test, which accounts for the THCa concentration. In other words, even though THCa is never mentioned in the Farm Bill, it is implied by virtue of the required post-decarboxylation test that must take place before a hemp crop can be harvested. Once this test is passed, the hemp crop may be harvested. Thereafter, the concentration of THCa is irrelevant and, under the Farm Bill, the sole metric to distinguish between lawful hemp and unlawful marijuana is the concentration of delta-9 THC, not THCa. This is a critical point, since most harvested hemp crops would fail if the THCa concentration was included as the compliance metric in defining harvested hemp, something that the MMA would require. Notably, grain crops require late flowering, and will have no legal pathway if the MMA becomes law and “total THC”, rather than delta-9 THC, becomes the new legal compliance standard.
- It excludes viable seeds from the definition of “hemp” when they come from a plant with total THC that exceeds 0.3%, even though cannabis seeds contain almost no THC, and the DEA itself considers them to be lawful. Notably, all grains, including hemp seeds, are “viable” before they are rendered non-viable. As discussed above, the MMA’s requirement that all post-harvest material pass a post-decarboxylation test would deem all hemp seeds from such plants to be schedule 1 controlled substance. Given that as much as 88% of harvested hemp plants fail a total THC test and are illegal marijuana under the MMA, the grain market will collapse if the MMA is enacted into law. I should note that this specific provision has nothing to do with health, safety, or anything else along those lines. Rather, it is solely about consolidating power in the hands of a few corporate marijuana conglomerates who perceive all competition, even from hobbyist home growers, as a threat to their bottom lines.
- It excludes “quantifiable amounts” of THC, including THCa, from the definition of “hemp”. Hemp is cannabis. It is not some other species of plant. One of the most notable and fundamental characteristics of the cannabis plant is that it expresses THC. By eliminating all THC, the MMA would render all hemp, including industrial hemp, a schedule 1 controlled substance since ALL hemp plants express THC in quantifiable amounts. The founder of one of the top cannabis laboratories in the country informed me that his lab can detect THC at levels down to picograms/mL (0.0001). This roughly equates to a drop of THC in an olympic size pool. Moreover, even if an industrial hemp plant could be grown with no quantifiable amounts of THC, the fiber market is not currently viable enough on its own to support an industry. It does not produce sufficient revenue to support testing labs, regulators’ budgets, or the bottom lines of most businesses. Given time, this will change, but only if the entire hemp industry is allowed to survive and to thrive.
The MMA pulls the rug out from underneath the multi-billion-dollar hemp industry that Congress created in 2018. This includes the grain and fiber sectors. Even though the MMA is promoted as an effort to close the so-called hemp loophole, what it will really do is kill the entire legal hemp industry while giving away billions of dollars to the illegal marijuana industry. If Congress truly believed that hemp products constitute a public health crisis, then it would have enacted legislation requiring the FDA or another federal agency to oversee it many years ago. The fact that it hasn’t done this belies the shrill cries of concern of the marijuana cartel’s disinformation campaign that mask its true intent to destroy its hemp competitor. Moreover, there are better ways to address safety than by killing the hemp industry, including by promulgating regulations that prohibit access by minors, mandating quality control in production, and standardizing labeling so adults can make educated decisions about what products they choose to purchase. These three regulatory zones, what I call the “Three Pillars”, have been addressed in hemp-industry sponsored bills in state legislatures throughout the country, many of which have been defeated due to intense lobbying against them by the marijuana industry. Finally, for proponents of “industrial” uses for hemp who also think that it is okay to give the illegal corporate marijuana cartel a giveaway while destroying thousands of legal small businesses, be aware that MMA will kill the entire hemp industry, including the industrial sector that they purport to support.
This article was written by Rod Kight, an attorney who represents businesses in the hemp industry, in conjunction with Jonathan Miller, General Counsel to the US Hemp Roundtable, and Chris Fontes, President of the US Hemp Authority.
August 7, 2024
I live in Georgia and in Oct any flower even CBD and vapes will be illegal. If I want to stay in business I will have to jump through many hoops just to carry the products that will remain. (Edibles and tinctures) it just breaks my heart to hear that there is a possibility of it all going away. So many people rely on CBD and Delta 8 even THCA for a better quality of life. It’s not about getting “HIGH” it’s about feeling better without tons of harmful side affects.
Thanks for your comment, Laurie. I completely agree. We are pushing hard for the “hemp path” but there are many opponents. Keep up the good work. -Rod
Thank you for all you do. The Herculean efforts of these men are the only silver lining I see in any of this, which looms as a death knell on the horizon. As a former vape industry participant, I can tell you that this pattern of activity on Capitol Hill does not end well for the underdog. It’s hard to see anything other than imminent demise.
Thank you, James. While I understand your concerns based on your prior experience, I have a lot of hope. -Rod
And George Soros, the largest contributor to the democratic party, the World Economic Forum, the hatchet man for Big Pharma, and the number one funder of the recreational cannabis industry, is behind this effort to end hemp in the US.
If Soros can get this passed AND move cannabis to Schedule III, his plan to destroy the hemp and cannabis industry, and restrict the use of all cannabinoids to Big Pharma, will be complete.
Rod, why do you continue to deny that this what’s happening?
Hi, Steve. While I agree that there are forces moving to crush hemp as a competitor, they are mostly out front about it. I don’t subscribe to Soros conspiracy theories, which have been active across many, many subjects since at least the 1990s. I recommend reading about them on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theories
Rod
As long as you continue to write off everything you haven’t bothered to research as a “conspiracy theory”, your opinions on these critical issues will continue to be fatally flawed. I ran the “No On I-502” campaign, the Soros funded recreational initiative in Washington State. I’m one of the few people that have extensive personal experience with Soros and his anti-cannabis campaign on behalf of Big Pharma.
The Soros initiatives were just the first step in his plan to wipe out both medical cannabis and the hemp industry, and make sure that only his friends in Big Pharma would control cannabinoids.
While you no longer deny that it’s the recreational cannabis industry lobbying to kill off hemp in America, You somehow avoid making the connection between Soros and the recreational cannabis industry. Were you unaware that Soros, as the key to his plan, bought off every one of the national “cannabis legalization” organizations? You don’t know that he started funding NORML, MPP, Drug Policy Alliance, and even the one national medical cannabis organization, Americans for Safes Access? I founded the Americans for Safe Access chapter in Washington State, so I watched all of this happen and wrote about it at the time.
I understand that you weren’t around back then, but I’ve certainly written enough about what happened, and you continue to call it a “conspiracy theory”, because that fits your narrative, while ignoring the actual history of what happened.
So the Soros plan was to get control of these financially failing organizations by funding them and use them to pass his recreational initiatives in the three most successful medical cannabis states, including the one you live in. Let me know when I get to the “conspiracy” part of this well-documented history that you perhaps never bothered to read.
The next part of his plan was to use those “cannabis legalization” organizations to help organize and support the new recreational marijuana entrepreneurs help him eliminate “medical cannabis” in those three states. I saw this coming which was why I opposed his initiative in Washington State. These groups, along with funding from Soros, did indeed start lobbying to kill off medical cannabis as soon at the initiative in Washington passed in 2012. And in 2014 every one of the 1,500 medical dispensaries in Washington were shut down by the state, that’s to the lobbying of the Soros paid lobbyists. I can name them if you like, because I personally battled them in the legislature.
Again, let me know when I get to “conspiracy” part of the story, Rod. But Soros’ plan didn’t end there. His recreational initiatives were written to make sure that those that got licenses would find it all but impossible to financially survive. In Washington State, in one year alone, nearly 1,000 recreational growers closed their doors. Rod, you can verify all of this information on Google to avoid have to repeat “conspiracy theory” to often.
But eliminating medical cannabis was only part of George Soros’ plan to hand over all things cannabis to Big Pharma. At the same time all of this was happening, a new, and even more dangerous target appeared on the scene, and it appeared in the state where you live, Rod, so you should at least be aware of this one.
The hemp industry entrepreneurs found that they could make a fortune off a non-psychoactive cannabinoid that would turn, overnight, into multi-million dollar industry. CBD, proven to treat a wide range of medical issues, especially seizure disorders, was an industry that was in direct competition with Big Pharma. Not only was is cheap, but it was effective. And it was profitable. You remember CBD, don’t you Rod?
So Soros played off of the greed of the financially failing recreational pot industry and convinced them that, since CBD came from the cannabis plant, this profitable industry should belong to them, not those greedy farmers. So he rallied his troops again and funded lobbyists to attack the hemp industry, which is what you’re now witnessing, and, sadly, calling a “conspiracy theory”.
He started with the same game plan and bought off the HIA, more specifically, [REDACTED], who was actually working working for the recreational cannabis industry, Do you think that’s a “conspiracy theory” too, Rod? How did she end up on the Board of Directors of, Soros funded, NORML?
I have a LOT more proof and I can back all of this up, but I’ve told you this before and your response is always the same. I’m actually writing a book about the history of this Rod, and I’d send you a copy, but I’m sure you wouldn’t read it.
Thanks, Steve. As I said before, I don’t peddle conspiracy theories. I appreciate you reading and commenting.
Rod
Steve Sarich, if this is all true (I neither doubt it, nor affirm it), then your life experience would make for one heck of a docudrama. There are plenty of YouTubers in this industry who would take this story on for free (if you have the forensic evidence). Rod himself was recently featured in a THCa documentary on the LMC channel (almost 140k subscribers), as just one example. I’ve personally been following LMC for quite a while; he’s talented, and down to earth. Give him a shout. Keep fighting these bastards!
There is no “if” about it. I’ve lived it and can certainly prove it. Rod seems to affirm most of it himself. We all certainly know that it’s been the recreational cannabis mafia that’s been attacking both medical cannabis, and the hemp industry, Rod’s not denying that…..he’s documenting it.
So then it comes down to the question of whether George Soros, was behind the planning and funding of these attacks. Rod cannot deny that Soros personally created the recreational cannabis industry, beginning in 2012 by funding Initiative 1-502 in Washington State and Amendment 64 in Colorado. I ran the “No On I-502” campaign in Washington so I’m intimately familiar with Soros and his plans.
Please note that Rod doesn’t disagree with those facts. In fact, if you look at Rod’s comments, the only thing he will not admit is that Soros is behind the actions of the recreational cannabis mafia and their determination to take down medical cannabis and the hemp industry!
He understands that NORML and the rest of these scum are lobbying on behalf of the Rec mafia. No one can argue with that. These groups were failing, financially, prior to 2011 when George Soros became their sole funding source. I don’t see anyone arguing that fact….certainly not NORML or MPP, or DPA, and not Rod either.
So, we have a multi-billionaire, George Soros, whose second largest investment is in Bayer-Monsanto, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and the largest seed and pesticide company, spending billions to hire lobbyists and pass legislation to create a recreational marijuana industry.
Are we all aware that it was John D. Rockefeller, and the pharmaceutical industry that he personally created, that lobbied Congress to make cannabis illegal in 1937? Is this the same pharmaceutical industry that has spent billions of dollars, worldwide, to keep cannabis illegal? And we know why they need to keep it illegal, right? If not I’m happy to explain it to you.
So the only thing that Rod disagrees with me on is whether Soros, who has created the rec industry, is funding the all of the recreation cannabis lobbying groups, is continuing to fund the lobbying of this industry to kill off medical and hemp. The lobbying is certainly being done, and Soros is the one funding them, but Rod would like you to believe that that there is somehow no connections there.
That argument simply defies all credibility…..Occam’s razor.
The situation we have now can no longer be ignored. The DEA and FDA are working with HHS to push through cannabis rescheduling. If you aren’t aware of exactly what this will do to the cannabis industry, and you don’t know that it will limit the production and sales and use of all cannabinoids to the Big Pharma, you really haven’t been paying attention.
So the pharmaceutical industry was tearing their hair out watching the rise medical cannabis, followed by more competition from the legal hemp industry, who were actually making cheap CBD products that worked better than their own CBD product, and they called on their biggest supporter and hatchet man George Soros, a movie villain of a character for sure, to come up with a plan to destroy their enemies….using his rec mafia that he created.
And finally to kill off the rec industry and hand all cannabis back over the pharmaceutical industry. And you’re watching it happen right before your eyes.
And what do you say if you have no other explanation for what you’re seeing? You simply call it a “Conspiracy Theory”. And if we’ve learned anything in the past 10 years, it’s that conspiracy theories are usually true.
Why won’t Rod acknowledge this? I won’t even bother to guess.
As for the Rec Mafia….they’re already out trying to sign up for pharmaceutical and DEA licenses.
So, James, what do you make of this situation?