The New Federal Hemp Ban Is An Opportunity To Legalize Cannabis Across The Board (Op-Ed)

*“Millions of Americans in red states are about to lose access to cannabis,
and I intend to ensure that they know it.”*

*By Adam Terry, Cantrip*

This is the moment—2026 is our last, best chance to actually legalize
cannabis in America

Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pulled off something that many of us
in the hemp side of the cannabis industry thought infeasible but long
feared: He passed a ban on virtually all hemp products containing THC.

After passing the very legislation that underpinned the enormous hemp boom
over the last seven years, McConnell managed to force in language to the
recent agriculture appropriations bill that limits THC in hemp to 0.4mg of
THC, redefines “total THC” to include anything vaguely resembling d9-THC
and criminalizes intermediates between plant and product—effectively
banning the process that creates CBD isolate.

The most surprising result of this? We are going to use this to finally and
truly legalize all cannabis nationwide.

Hear me out.

I have been in the cannabis industry for over a decade, and I was a
cannabis legalization activist in the five years before that. I worked on
phone banking for Colorado, Washington State and California during their
ballot processes in the early 2010s. I campaigned hard for legalization in
Massachusetts before we even had a ballot initiative by organizing events
and letter campaigns. I believe in cannabis reform as a moral imperative.

Each year, cannabis reform has been important work by activists who care
about personal freedom and the miscarriage of justice that each arrest for
cannabis represented, as well as an important initiative to expand the
growing state-legal marijuana industry in America. And each year, major
media outlets and most Americans have treated cannabis legalization as a
mildly interesting side show, perhaps funny but nowhere near as important
as the myriad issues that face our nation today.

But one thing changed last week: There has never before been a situation
where we have seen access to cannabis given to millions of Americans and
then abruptly taken away.

359 days until MILLIONS of Americans lose all access to cannabis.

There has never been a riper time to push for comprehensive cannabis reform
in America. https://t.co/JPRks6NwC0

— Weed Drinks Guy (@cantripguy) November 18, 2025

The hemp industry has had problems with many bad and potentially dangerous
products since its inception. I don’t think anyone can legitimately argue
that is not true. We have seen hemp used as an excuse to pass off illegally
grown cannabis as legitimate, a proliferation of synthetic cannabinoids
that no one has any historical safety data on and an unfortunate market for
cannabis infused trademark infringements so frequently touted by lawmakers
and regulators when they push for bans.

In this way, I applaud Congress for taking action to address synthetic
cannabinoids and the myriad terrible products launched into the hemp
marketplace.

What we have also seen is many states choose to regulate hemp in one form
or another. Indeed, 40 states in the U.S. regulate hemp in some capacity or
another, and many have strict regulations and taxation—look at Alabama,
Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota and Tennessee as strong examples of states
that have chosen to regulate instead of ban these products. Mandatory age
gating, batch specific testing, certificate of analysis (COA) transparency,
specifying venues of sale, dosing caps and banning synthetic cannabinoids
to a very large extent are common themes of these programs.

Now, millions of Americans have come to rely on hemp as their access to
cannabis both in states where marijuana dispensaries exist and where they
don’t. Veterans, seniors, soccer moms and average Americans of all walks of
life have gotten used to easy access to full spectrum CBD products to
alleviate various wellness issues they have—from sleep benefits all the way
up through PTSD. Many have switched from alcohol to THC drinks sold at
legitimate outlets like Total Wine & More and even Target as regulations
and good governance rolled out across multiple marketplaces.

Americans are not huge fans of losing personal freedoms, and seniors and
veterans know how to activate politically. In my time in the cannabis
industry, I have never seen a cannabis policy that instantly removed access
to people across the entire country in the way this sweeping sledge-hammer
of a ban has. Never before have so many people been affected in a negative
way on this issue all at once.

Which brings me to my main thesis: For one year only, legalizing cannabis
across the United States is now more possible than ever.

As someone who has operated businesses in both the hemp and marijuana
industries, I have empathy for the operators who have long seen hemp as an
unfair competitor to their industry. While I take issue with their logic in
many cases, I do understand the emotional state that it comes from.

State-legal programs are overregulated, overtaxed, frequently punitive to
operators and in many cases prevent meaningful scaling of a brand or
business. One of many examples is in my home state: In Massachusetts it is
nearly impossible to even grow cannabis outdoors with the way our
regulatory scheme works, forcing most flower sold to be grown indoors and
sucking up 10 percent of all commercial electricity in the state for
something that was grown outdoors safely for millennia.

On the hemp side, thousands of legitimate businesses across the country
have flourished by operating above board. People have opened up hemp
retailers, many focused on wellness and sourcing quality products with
quality ingredients. In states like Kentucky, Minnesota and Tennessee,
which have very strict regulatory requirements, people have invested their
money and time in building businesses compliant with their local regulatory
schemes.

Many scrutinize the brands they carry heavily, checking for legitimate COAs
(there are ways to spot faked ones), spot testing their own products and
focusing on quality full spectrum CBD and THC products over synthetic
cannabinoid soup. Farmers have come to grow thousands of acres of hemp to
support the nearly $30 billion (by some estimates) hemp industry and
invested heavily in that infrastructure.

Manufacturers and copackers like Scofflaw Brewing in Georgia, which now
touts 80 percent of its business as THC manufacturing, have invested
millions in equipment that they can’t suddenly get back. Businesses like
mine (a beverage brand called Cantrip), born in dispensaries but finding
their true success in liquor and grocery stores, pour over state packaging
and testing regulations and spend tens of thousands on various attorneys to
ensure we create a product compliant with the maximum number of states.

To date, I have not found a way to fit language on my can to sell in every
state that permits hemp particularly since in some cases that language
contradicts other states’ requirements, forcing me to still produce
slightly different labels for different states for some products. Cantrip,
like others, has forgone otherwise lucrative opportunities in California
and New York in order to respect those states’ choices to ban hemp products
even when I vehemently disagree with such mandates.

Then there’s the alcohol industry. It may be no surprise to find that
liquor retailers and distributors love selling THC beverages—indeed in some
cases they have seen sales lifts upwards of 25 percent carrying such
products, as opposed to the typical 1 percent lift we see in state-legal
dispensaries from beverage products.

The big suppliers—the macro brands of beer and spirits—have largely been
unhappy with the state of the industry and its competition with alcohol.
However, I think they could be convinced, given a way to participate.
Alcohol consumption is declining independent of the rise of THC beverages,
and a ban on THC isn’t going to stop that. I am certain these companies
could be very successful in this space if they saw a pathway to
participation without risking their other business.

I believe that we can bring these stakeholders together for an historic
moment in an upcoming critical election year. I’ve met few folks in the
hemp industry who don’t believe that cannabis should be de-scheduled
nationwide—pending specifics, of course. Millions of Americans in red
states are about to lose access to cannabis, and I intend to ensure that
they know it.

This is an issue that is going to be palpable as Democrats in tough races
like the one for a Georgia Senate seat seek an edge. Red state politicians
are going to never want hear the word “cannabis,” again by the time this
election is over. We have never had larger awareness or popular support for
cannabis, as it is something that has often been reserved for blue states.

My proposal is simple, but not easy: we use this moment, where millions of
people are about to lose all access to cannabis in states that have zero
dispensaries and millions more will lose the easy access they’ve come to
enjoy, to once and for all decriminalize, deschedule and regulate cannabis
in the U.S.

We know that this president loves to do things people think simply can’t be
done—why not do something that most Americans already support in poll after
poll after poll? It would be a lasting legacy of freedom for Americans.

How would we do this? The specific policy proposal is as follows:

1. De-schedule cannabis federally;
2. Create a Code of Federal Regulation chapter with input from industry
stakeholders, regulators, and the Department of Health and Human Services
that creates baseline guidance for how cannabis and cannabis products need
to be treated—this includes age-gating THC products and specifying
definitions of intoxicating and non-intoxicating compounds, creating a
federal excise tax and reporting system (in spirits, excise tax reporting
is actually also your track and trace system) and other general points;
3. Leave questions about milligram limits, licensing, state and local
taxes and venue of sale to the states such that Georgia, Kentucky,
Minnesota and Tennessee can keep their programs mostly as is. Generally, a
low dose product in major venues like grocery and liquor stores and higher
dose products like flower, concentrates, and stronger edibles in more
specialized dispensaries seems like a good way to go, but each state can
have the debate.

My proposal is not the only valid solution, but simply a way to start a
conversation. It is a policy debate worth having, in the open, and quickly.

Should the federal ban go into effect, there can be no question of
“state-legal” hemp. There would be no difference between hemp and marijuana
at that point; no alcohol retailer or distributor could participate without
losing their license and companies like Target would be de-listed from the
NYSE and suffer billions in 280E penalties across goods.

We need federally legal cannabis; until now, that has been hemp. I propose
we make the words marijuana and hemp obsolete and have one unified system
for one plant, and I believe we can do this.

After 2026, we will lose our shot. On Veterans Day 2026, a deeply painful
irony, millions of Americans including veterans will lose access to
cannabis products they’ve come to rely on. We will have lost their faith in
the professional cannabis community to protect their rights. The issue will
fade; Congress will become more jammed than ever with investigations if
Democrats win and all legislation will come screeching to a halt.

We must take this opportunity now, as one cannabis community, to activate
voters in every corner of the U.S. to support descheduling cannabis and
creating a viable path to access. To force politicians in tough races to
talk about it and support changes. We don’t have much time in 2026 either,
as most legislation in an election year tends to conclude before the summer
recess given the intensity of the fall campaign.

Less than a year, multiple industries, and millions of Americans. We can do
this. We will do this. Let’s legalize weed in America.

*Adam Terry is the co-founder and CEO of the THC-infused beverage company
Cantrip.*

The post The New Federal Hemp Ban Is An Opportunity To Legalize Cannabis
Across The Board (Op-Ed) appeared first on Marijuana Moment.