Members of a congressional committee held a hearing on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday—with a hemp industry expert explaining how the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products and a staunch prohibitionist congressman invoking musician Elton John’s opposition to marijuana legalization.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard from a wide range of experts at the meeting, titled “Restoring Trust in FDA: Rooting Out Illicit Products.”
FDA “failed to approve products and take necessary enforcement actions resulting in a flood of illicit and counterfeit products entering the country,” a memo that the committee released last week says.
The meeting didn’t exclusively focus on cannabis issues. But among the five listed witnesses selected to testify was Jonathan Miller of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an organization that has long criticized FDA’s inaction on CBD and other cannabinoid regulations since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.
“We as an industry are begging for that regulation,” Miller said in response to a question from Chairman James Comer (R-KY).
Asked about instances of youth accessing intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoid products, the witness stressed that “we as an industry strongly oppose the sale of these products, or the marketing of these products, to children and really are looking for the FDA help to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
Comer inquired about FDA’s inaction to date, sarcastically asking if it’d require “a gazillion bureaucrats that work from home” to regulate cannabinoids such as CBD.
Miller said that existing statutes prohibit manufacturers and distributors to sell “mislabeled or adulterated products,” so taking enforcement action against those that violate the law is one way FDA could regulate hemp.
“The law also requires reporting of serious adverse events, and it mandates strict labeling—including, if FDA desires, warning against the use of products by children,” he said, adding that FDA “could require child proof packaging.”
“So there are existing laws out there that they can take advantage of,” he said.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), whose been vocal in his opposition to marijuana reform, used the hearing as an opportunity to air his grievances around cannabis—at one point referencing comments Elton John made last year describing legalization as a grave policy mistake.
Sessions said that ahead of the meeting he went to the online medical site WebMD, which he said linked THC to “brain effects like lower IQ, slower processing, speed, memory and attention issues.”
The congressman complained that delta-8 THC products that are derived or synthesized from hemp were not explicitly addressed in the 2018 Farm Bill that he had a hand in passing.
“I was told it was [hemp] ropes, things that are used by Americans every day” that would be legalized, he said. But due to a “loophole,” intoxicating consumable hemp products have proliferated on a largely unregulated basis.
“I think one of the telling things is comes from a guy whose name is Elton John, a well-known musician who has stated that, of all the things that he’s seen in his life, one of the worst things that he’s seen is America” is cannabis legalization, Sessions said. “Marijuana is THC, and so gentlemen, I will be watching you.”
“We’ve got to understand it is a dangerous product that causes IQ problems,” he added. “It causes problems with slowness of adults, and it causes problems that are harmful to children.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) also weighed in on the hemp side of the FDA-centered hearing, expressing his own concerns about children being accidentally exposed to intoxicating products.
“It seems the rules and regulations are kind of all over the place,” he said.
The congressman also pointed out that some of his colleagues, including “some in this room actually” support legalizing marijuana but “do not support it in the hands of children.”
In written testimony to the committee, Miller of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable stressed that “hemp’s policy success has always been a bipartisan hallmark.”
“It’s no wonder—hemp products are made in the USA, harvested from crops grown by American farmers, manufactured by innovative U.S. entrepreneurs, and sold by small businesses dotting the nation,” he said, adding that, over the past decade, “U.S. farmers have rebuilt a domestic supply chain of hemp and hemp products.”
“Unfortunately, however, the U.S. hemp industry continues to encounter avoidable bureaucratic headwinds in the marketplace,” he said. “And this turmoil is due in large part to statements, actions, and indecisions of [FDA].”
“We’ve watched in bewilderment as FDA has jerked back and forth with contradictory opinions. First, the agency affirmed its ability to regulate CBD under current law. And leaders at the agency clearly recognized that Congress wanted FDA to act quickly. But then, in the intervening years, FDA stalled, even ignoring congressional appropriations report directives to take expedited action. Meanwhile, federal regulatory uncertainty severely impacted the hemp and CBD market, with reduced manufacturing demand resulting in a more than 90 percent commodity price decline, crushing opportunities for U.S. farmers.”
He went on to say that FDA’s inaction “doesn’t just threaten the current and future CBD market for American farmers and consumers,” as a “new industry focused on the adult market has emerged to meet strong consumer demand for hemp-derived cannabinoids like delta-8 THC, delta-9 THC and CBN.”
“These products provide plant-based options for adults seeking products with functional health and wellness benefits that have not been effectively addressed,” Miller said. “Furthermore, a promising new hemp beverage industry has soared into popularity, meeting adult consumer demand for non-alcoholic options through domestic inputs from our farmers.”
“We are hopeful that new leadership at the FDA will reverse the past course of inaction and take deliberate action leveraging their current authorities to robustly regulate hemp products. This issue is precisely in line with the new Administration’s focus on providing adult consumers the freedom to make health care choices on behalf of their own families, with holistic solutions that are grown on American farms. If that’s the case, we ask Congress to ensure that the agency is properly resourced to implement good policy.”
“The hemp industry may be unique in that we are coming to Congress to ask: Please, regulate us!” his testimony concludes. “A rational, sensible regulatory framework for the hemp industry can also provide a needed financial jolt to our nation—an economic stimulus package for the nation’s farmers and small businesses without requiring one dime from the American taxpayer.”
Miller told Marijuana Moment last week that his testimony is meant to serve as an “update” on issues he outlined during a 2023 hearing before a subcommittee of the full panel, where lawmakers raised concerns about FDA’s refusal to establish rules allowing for the marketing of federally legal hemp as a food item or dietary supplement.
In the two years since that initial meeting, the hemp market has faced repeated regulatory challenges—with a growing number of states moving to enact bans on certain hemp products due to the lack of regulations around intoxicating cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC that have become widely available.
“Nothing has happened at the FDA” to resolve the issue, Miller said. “And we think these ban efforts have a lot to do with the fact that we’re not regulated. So if we can get regulated, hopefully people will drop the efforts to ban our products.”
One potential legislative solution that Miller said he planned to raise with the committee at the hearing is a bipartisan bill Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) filed last year that would create a federal regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoids.
The legislation would empower states to set their own rules for products such as CBD while also empowering FDA to ensure that certain safety standards are met in the marketplace.
In the absence of FDA rules, states from California to Florida have pushed for sweeping changes to their own laws around consumable hemp products. While much of the focus has been on intoxicating products, federally legal CBD businesses have also found themselves increasingly in the crosshairs.
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Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepare to once again take up large-scale agriculture legislation this session, congressional researchers in January provided an overview of the policy landscape around hemp—emphasizing the divides around various cannabis-related proposals among legislators, stakeholders and advocates.
Senate Democrats released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill last year that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. But certain stakeholders had expressed concern that part of the intent of the legislation was to “eliminate a whole range of products” that are now sold in the market.
For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop’s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.
Photo courtesy of Brendan Cleak.
Members of a congressional committee held a hearing on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday—with a hemp industry expert explaining how the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products and a staunch prohibitionist congressman invoking musician Elton John’s opposition to marijuana legalization. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard from Read More
