Will the Hemp Industry Survive the Miller Amendment?

Episode • May 29, 2024 • 58m

On this week’s hemp podcast we discuss a recent amendment to the House draft of the 2024 Farm Bill known as the Miller Amendment, which was introduced by Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill.

The amendment effectively bans all hemp products with any amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the naturally occurring chemical compound found in the cannabis plant.

The 2018 Farm Bill defined hemp as any cannabis with less than 0.3% THC.

But because of vague guidance from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug Administration, a cottage market has developed for intoxicating products from otherwise legal hemp, such as delta-8.

In March, 21 attorneys general from around the country signed a statement imploring Congress to close this perceived loophole, saying these unregulated, intoxicating products were packaged and marketed to children.

In a statement on her website, Miller said delta-8 products were being sold in packaging that looks like candy.

“We must stop teenagers and children from being exposed to addictive and harmful drugs,” Miller said.

Miller is from a farming background and represents a rural district in southern Illinois.

Many in the hemp industry think this amendment will have unintended consequences that could shut down the industry and destroy the livelihoods of people who are making legal and safe hemp products.

On the show this week, Lancaster Farming talks to two lawyers serving the hemp industry to hear their perspectives.

Justin Swanson, a cannabis lawyer from Bose McKinney & Evans in Indiana and the president of the Midwest Hemp Council, says the amendment is bad for the overall industry, citing harm to fiber and grain sectors and genetics.

“In my opinion, it eliminates the genetic seed stock that farmers have built, over the last six years, under the broad definition of the ’18 Farm Bill,” he said.

Courtney Moran of Agricultural Hemp Solutions is legislative counsel to the National Hemp Association.

Moran believes this amendment will have less of an effect on the fiber and grain sector, but still finds the new language troubling for the overall industry.

Moran doesn’t see it as an “industry-killing” amendment, as it’s been presented in online headlines.

“I would not uses those words,” she said. “It is a major shift from the policies and language that we’ve seen in both the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills,” and if it moves forward it will have major consequences.

But she reminds listeners that this is only the House draft and there are many more procedural hoops the Farm Bill must go through before being signed into law.

Both lawyers suggest that the amendment has Big Marijuana’s fingers all over it.

The legally murky market for delta-8 and other hemp-derived intoxicants is cutting into the marijuana industry’s profits.

Also on this episode, we check in with Morris Beegle, founder of the NoCo hemp Expo in Colorado, who tells us more about the June 5-7 European Industrial Hemp Conference and Expo in the Czech Republic.

Learn More:

Justin Swanson

jswanson@boselaw.com

317-684-5404

The Cannabis Practice Group at Bose McKinney & Evans

https://www.boselaw.com/cannabusiness/

Midwest Hemp Council

https://www.midwesthempcouncil.com/

Courtney Moran

Campaigns@agriculturalhempsolutions.com

202-656-7023

Blog: https://www.agriculturalhempsolutions.com/blog