Congress Should Delay The Federal Hemp Ban And Instead Enact Regulations For THC And CBD Products (Op-Ed)

*“Republicans, Democrats and independents alike understand that regulation
is better than prohibition, and that good science takes time.”*

*By Mike Simpson, Lovewell Farms via Rhode Island Current*

At a moment when Americans across the political spectrum say they
want evidence-based policy, Congress is on the verge of repeating a
familiar mistake: banning first and studying later.

Bipartisan legislation recently introduced in both the U.S. House and
Senate would delay the impending federal ban on hemp-derived products. This
is not to legalize anything new, but instead to give regulators,
researchers and farmers time to do what Congress says it wants to do:
Gather data, set clear rules and regulate responsibly.

I write this as a hemp farmer and small-business owner myself. Having
started Lovewell Farms in 2018, I know firsthand the implications a ban on
hemp-derived products would have on my farm, Rhode Island’s only
USDA-certified organic hemp farm. Here is what legislators may not fully
understand: Hemp is not something that can be turned on and off with a
vote. Farmers need to know in the next 100 days if the plant they will
harvest in October will be legal in November.

Seeds are planted in April. Fields are cultivated all summer. Crops are
harvested in October. A federal ban that takes effect in November lands
after farmers have already committed an entire season’s labor, capital and
compliance costs. There is no rewind button for agriculture. That
uncertainty is already forcing farms to shut down. A sudden ban would
finish the job.

The Senate bill (S.3686), introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota
Democrat, and co-sponsors Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, and Jeff
Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, would delay enforcement of the hemp-derived
product ban for two years, allowing Congress to pursue regulatory
alternatives rather than defaulting to prohibition. A companion bill in the
House (H.7010), led by Rep. Jim Baird, an Indiana Republican, also with
bipartisan cosponsors, would do the same.

Together, these bills recognize a basic agricultural reality: Farmers need
predictability before they plant.

Importantly, Congress is not only proposing a delay, it is also debating
regulation. The Hemp Enforcement, Modernization, and Protection (HEMP) Act
is yet another bipartisan bill introduced in the House (H.7212) that would
establish a federal framework for hemp-derived products, including clear
safety standards, labeling requirements, enforcement authority and defined
potency limits by product type. The proposal sets per-serving and
per-package caps for non-intoxicating oral hemp products, inhalables,
topicals and THC-containing items, demonstrating that consumer protection
and responsible oversight are achievable without resorting to prohibition.

Taken together, these bills show that Congress has viable, bipartisan
alternatives to an outright ban, if it chooses to use them.

At this point, this is not a debate about intoxicating THC limits. It is
about whether hemp policy will be guided by science or by fear. That
distinction matters, because federal science is finally catching up. In
2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal
agencies to expand cannabis and cannabidiol (CBD) research, including the
use of large federal health datasets such as Medicare records to study
safety, efficacy and outcomes.

The order did not legalize CBD or add it as a Medicare benefit, but it
explicitly acknowledged that cannabinoids require rigorous study before
sweeping policy decisions are made. Congress is now hurtling toward
prohibition at the exact moment the federal government is building the
science-based research infrastructure needed to answer the hard questions.

Even the concerns raised by opponents of hemp-derived products argue for
regulation, not bans. If products require clearer labeling, age
restrictions, potency standards or enforcement tools, like those already in
place in Rhode Island, those are state-by-state regulatory challenges.
Rhode Island already regulates hemp products. Farmers and businesses here
should not be penalized because other states have dragged their feet to
create a regulated market.

Prohibition does not solve these issues; it simply pushes them out of
sight, into unregulated markets that are less safe for consumers. A hemp
ban would also push production overseas. If hemp farming in the United
States collapses, demand will not disappear. It will just shift to imported
cannabinoids from countries like Canada or China, where American regulators
have far less visibility or control. That outcome harms local farmers,
consumers, and public safety alike.

Rhode Island’s Reps. Gabe Amo and Seth Magaziner previously voted against a
federal hemp ban embedded in a larger spending bill. That was the right
call. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, however, explicitly voted to
keep the hemp ban language in that same bill. Rhode Island’s senators now
have an opportunity to support local farmers and small businesses by
cosponsoring this bipartisan delay bill (S.3686). Rhode Island’s
representatives can do the same with the corresponding companion bill in
the House (H.7010).

This is one of the few issues in Congress that remains genuinely
bipartisan. Republicans, Democrats and independents alike understand that
regulation is better than prohibition, and that good science takes time.
Congress should not dismantle a domestic $30 billion agricultural industry
with over 300,000 jobs just as meaningful research is beginning. A
temporary delay protects farmers, supports small businesses, keeps hemp
farming rooted here in the United States and allows policymakers to
regulate with evidence rather than panic.

Prohibition without evidence is not policymaking. Rhode Island’s delegation
should stand with farmers, small businesses and science by cosponsoring the
bipartisan bills that delay this ban and allow regulation to catch up with
reality.

*Mike Simpson is the co-founder of Lovewell Farms, Rhode Island’s only U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic hemp farm. He is also a historian,
educator and longtime advocate for policy reform. He was previously deputy
director for Regulate Rhode Island and an initiative coordinator for
Marijuana Policy Project in Maine. He now lives in Providence and farms in
the village of Hope Valley in Hopkinton.*

*This story was first published by Rhode Island Current.*

*Photo courtesy of Max Jackson.*

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Regulations For THC And CBD Products (Op-Ed) appeared first on Marijuana
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