🧪 Hemp THC Ban, Wyden’s Cannabis Bill, And What Congress Does Next

Built by a former cannabis regulator, Policy, Decoded helps operators read the policy terrain before it shifts beneath their feet.

Today’s edition tracks the hemp THC ban through Wyden’s rescue bill, Congress’s own researchers, and the early moves from brands and regulators that have to live with the fallout. We follow the story into courts, enforcement systems, and state fights in Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

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🧪 Hemp THC ban, Wyden’s bill, and CRS doubts
⚖️ Courts, cops, and lab credibility
🗳️ Repeal efforts, social use, and residency rules

Steady work in a volatile lane.

📌 What Happened: Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have introduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, a bill that would replace the new federal hemp THC ban with a national framework built around FDA oversight. The proposal would repeal the provisions in the shutdown bill, set serving and package limits, require clear labeling and age-gating, and push hemp-derived cannabinoids into a registration and standards regime instead of leaving them to a simple “yes or no” definition. States could still run tighter than Washington, including bans, but they would be reacting to a federal floor rather than improvising from scratch. Sen. Wyden’s interest here is not new, given Oregon’s size as a hemp producer and the political muscle that crop still carries at home. The timing is what stands out, since the ink is barely dry on the shutdown deal President Trump signed that locked the ban in for a next November effective date and already has companies choosing between exit, hibernation, or relocation.

💡 Why It Matters: Sen. Wyden is trying to swap a blunt prohibition for managed risk, and he is doing it on a clock that matters for planting, capital, and jobs. A national standard would give insurers, major retailers, and payment processors a clearer line on CBD and low-dose THC products, which matters as much as the statute for whether shelves stay stocked. It also reframes the fight from “loopholes and bad actors” to a more honest question about whether Washington can design a hemp lane that protects kids and access without wiping out farmers and manufacturers. That frame will appeal to farm-state Republicans who never signed up to ban seeds and genetics along with gummies, and to Democrats who would rather talk about standards than whack-a-mole enforcement. The catch is that this same Congress just voted for the ban, so any rethink may read as an admission that the first deal moved faster than the policy work behind it. Congress? Admit it was wrong?

🧾 Congress’s Own Researchers Question Whether The Hemp Ban Can Be Enforced

A new Congressional Research Service report on the federal hemp THC ban spells out a problem lawmakers mostly skipped over during the shutdown fight: FDA and DEA may not have the people, money, or lab capacity to police millions of packages and thousands of retailers against a 0.4-milligram total THC cap. CRS walks through the new definition, notes that most current intoxicating hemp products will fall on the wrong side of it, and then points back to the marijuana playbook, where federal prohibition technically applies but day-to-day enforcement largely defaults to the states. The analysis flags banking, interstate commerce, and criminal exposure as live risks if Washington ever decides to move. It also quietly suggests that resource constraints and political will could leave the ban under-enforced, at least at first. (Cannabis Science and Technology)

🌾 House Ag Hears Hemp Pain Alongside Farm Aid And Shrimp

House Agriculture’s “member day” turned into a catch-all airing of grievances, including fresh warnings from Rep. Tim Moore (R-NC) that the new federal hemp restrictions tucked into last month’s shutdown deal could wipe out most of his state’s industry. Moore told colleagues that the law’s changes to hemp policy landed without meaningful industry input and would effectively eliminate over 95 percent of North Carolina’s hemp sector while putting hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk nationwide. His comments landed alongside Democratic complaints about Trump trade policies, SNAP cuts, and Gulf Coast shrimp pressures, which means hemp is now part of a broader rural-economic stress story instead of a niche fight over cannabinoids. The next test is whether House Ag leadership treats that concern as a one-day venting session or starts looking for a vehicle to revisit hemp language that members are already describing as an unforced error. (Agri-Pulse)

🧴 Curaleaf Walks Away From Hemp THC Before Congress Forces The Issue

Curaleaf is shutting down its hemp-derived THC product lines, including its national beverage brand, ahead of the federal hemp THC ban that takes effect in late 2026. Executives cast the move as a way to avoid stranding capital in a line of business that Congress just voted to erase, while preserving optionality to retool equipment in tightly regulated marijuana states such as New York or Florida. The company will keep lobbying for a federal framework that brings hemp beverages and other “borderline” products back into a lawful lane, which keeps Curaleaf at the table as lawmakers and agencies sort through the wreckage of Section 781. For smaller hemp brands that built their identities around being everything Curaleaf is not, watching one of the biggest MSOs quietly exit the field is its own kind of market guidance. (MJBizDaily)

🍺 Texas Braces For TABC Hemp Rules Under A Federal Storm Cloud

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is holding a hearing today on permanent rules for hemp-derived THC sales in bars and other alcohol-permitted venues, locking in age-gating and ID checks that grew out of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order on sales to minors. Retailers like Restart CBD and advocates who fought off a near-total consumable hemp ban in draft legislation have largely embraced the rules as overdue, since most reputable shops already card at 21 and want weaker operators pushed out. The more consequential shift sits in Abbott’s request to move broader hemp enforcement authority from the Department of State Health Services to TABC, which would centralize oversight inside an agency that understands point-of-sale compliance but has limited history with cannabinoids in grocery, vape, or wellness channels. All of this unfolds while the federal government’s shutdown hemp ban will redefine hemp and wipe out most THC-heavy products, which makes today’s hearing feel like short-term battlefield planning ahead of a much larger national reset. (MySanAntonio)

💊 Florida GOP Bill Links Opioid Prescriptions To Medical Cannabis Access

Florida Rep. Bill Partington (R) has filed a bill to expand the state’s medical cannabis program by allowing doctors to recommend marijuana to any patient who has been prescribed opioids, regardless of diagnosis. The measure would also extend patient registrations to as long as two years, waive registration fees for honorably discharged veterans, and let physicians issue certifications via telehealth without an in-person exam. Regulators would need to stand up a rapid reciprocity process that grants out-of-state patients Florida cards within one business day, and doctors could certify far larger smokable and 35-day supply limits than current law allows. The bill lands alongside a separate Democratic proposal to legalize homegrow for patients and a renewed industry-backed adult-use measure for the 2026 ballot, which turns Florida’s next session into a crowded test of how far Republicans are willing to move on cannabis under an opioid and veterans’ health frame. (Marijuana Moment)

⚖️ California Judge Presses DCC On Track-And-Trace Duties

A California court has ruled that the Department of Cannabis Control is not yet meeting a statutory obligation to run a tracking system that automatically flags suspicious activity, siding with Catalyst’s challenge to how the state polices “burner” distribution licenses. The judge acknowledged years of concern about diversion from the legal market while also setting a February 6th hearing to work through what compliance looks like in practice, which keeps the remedy phase squarely in the court’s hands. DCC points to more than $100 million invested in its database and a recent uptick in enforcement, and says it is reviewing the decision while moving to strengthen traceability rather than defending the status quo. The ruling still lands as a public rebuke of the state’s current approach to software, staffing, and oversight, and it turns the follow-up hearing into a live test of how California balances technical fixes with the realities of a stressed agency and a sprawling illicit market. (SFGATE)

🧪 THC Inflation Allegations Put Massachusetts Testing Back Under The Microscope

A regional narcotics officers group in New England says it has secretly tested more than 100 Massachusetts cannabis products over the past two years and found THC levels well below what dispensary labels promised, framing the gap as consumer fraud and a sign of lab oversight failure. The group’s president points to near-infrared screening results and rumors of “lab shopping,” even as officers spend time mystery shopping a legal, tax-paying market in a state still drowning in fentanyl and opioid deaths. CCC leaders note that they froze thousands of potentially contaminated products tied to Assured Testing Laboratories and suspended the lab over undisclosed yeast and mold, while acknowledging that potency inflation and lab shopping demand more work. A formal secret shopper program for underage sales, daily limits, and basic compliance would help. The work that actually matters lives in boring spreadsheets, validated methods, and staff capable of proving things with an administrative record. I’m not sure if this agency has had more conspiracies or directors of testing over the last year, but that turnover pattern weakens oversight far more than any sting operation ever will. (CBS Boston)

🗳️ Massachusetts Repeal Campaign Cuts It Close On Signature Deadline

The Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts filed roughly 76,000 signatures with Secretary of State William Galvin’s office on December 3rd in its push to repeal the state’s adult-use cannabis law, leaving itself only a narrow margin above the 74,574 required. Galvin’s elections staff are now reviewing every petition sheet for technical defects and proper local certification, a process that typically takes several weeks and can wipe out entire batches over stray markings or formatting errors. If the question survives that screening, lawmakers will receive the proposed “Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy” next session and have until early May to either enact it, offer a competing measure, or let the campaign move on to a second, smaller signature round in 2026. A successful repeal would unwind a $1.6 billion annual market that has generated nearly $1.5 billion in state tax revenue since 2018, which turns this signature count from a procedural detail into the first real test of how durable legalization is in Massachusetts. (Cannabis Business Times)

🏬 Massachusetts Social Consumption Rules Finally Near A Vote

Massachusetts cannabis regulators are preparing to vote on long-awaited social consumption rules that would allow on-site use at designated venues for the first time. The proposal reserves the earliest licenses for social equity operators, keeps alcohol and cannabis strictly separated, and relies on ventilation, product limits, and transportation planning as core public-safety tools. The timeline tells its own story, with a 2016 voter mandate, years of governance churn at the Cannabis Control Commission, and repeated resets that left social use lagging behind other parts of the market. The real test now is whether municipalities opt in and whether the agency can move from a regulatory vote to live licenses on a practical clock instead of another multi-year cycle. (Boston Newsroom)

⚖️ 1st Circuit Keeps Rhode Island’s Residency Rules On The Hook

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a constitutional challenge to Rhode Island’s Cannabis Act, holding that a lower court wrongly tossed the case as unripe. California-based entrepreneur Justyna Jensen is attacking the law’s residency requirement for retail license applicants and key pieces of the social equity definition, arguing that both discriminate against out-of-state owners under the dormant Commerce Clause and Equal Protection Clause. The panel ordered the district court to decide the merits and any remedies at least 45 days before Rhode Island issues adult-use retail licenses, which forces the new Cannabis Control Commission to defend the statute’s text on the substance instead of waiting behind unfinished rules. The opinion stops short of striking any provisions now, yet it turns the next phase of litigation into a live risk for residency and equity structures in a market that only just opened its licensing portal. (Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly)