Bipartisan Bill Would Replace Hemp THC Ban With Federal Rules

Congress has a new plan for hemp-derived THC products: regulate and tax them rather than ban them. A bill introduced on July 22, 2026 by Reps. Andy Barr (R-KY) and Angie Craig (D-MN) would let most consumable hemp products keep selling to adults, heading off a federal ban set to take effect November 12, 2026 that would otherwise pull nearly all of them off store shelves.

The Lawful Hemp Protection Act would rewrite the federal definition of hemp for the second time in a year and build a national system of licensing, labeling, and taxes around the products consumers actually buy. Barr, who represents one of the country’s leading hemp states, frames it as certainty for farmers. Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, calls it an alternative to “short-sighted federal policies that threaten Minnesota jobs and consumer choice.”

What the bill would change

The core move is a higher line between hemp and marijuana. The bill would define hemp as cannabis containing up to 1 percent total THC by dry weight, more than triple the current 0.3 percent threshold, giving farmers and processors more room before a crop counts as a controlled substance.

From there it splits the market into industrial hemp and consumable products, and puts guardrails on the consumable side. Sales would be limited to buyers 21 and older. Products made with synthetic or lab-altered cannabinoids would be banned, with the bill naming HHC, THC-O acetate, and THCP specifically; only compounds a cannabis plant can produce on its own would qualify. Every consumable would have to be grown, processed, and packaged in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration would set maximum cannabinoid limits per serving and per package within a year of passage. If the agency misses that window, the bill installs fallback caps automatically: 5 milligrams of THC per serving for products taken by mouth, and 50 milligrams per serving for inhaled or topical products. Labels would need to show per-serving and per-package THC, carry warnings on pregnancy, impaired driving, and drug-test risk, and link by QR code to lab results. Packaging that mimics mainstream snacks or appeals to children would be prohibited.

The ban it is trying to head off

The urgency comes from a law already on the books. A hemp provision Congress passed in late 2025 narrows the federal hemp definition to a total-THC standard and caps a finished product at 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container — low enough to push virtually every gummy, drink, and tincture on the market outside the legal line. Anything above it stops being hemp and reverts to Schedule I marijuana under federal law.

That change takes effect November 12, 2026, and the agencies implementing it are behind: the FDA has missed a February 2026 deadline to publish the cannabinoid lists and container definitions the law requires. Industry groups value the hemp market at roughly $28 billion to $30 billion and warn the ban would wipe out most of it.

A tax-and-regulate structure

Rather than let that happen, the Barr-Craig bill would tax the surviving products and route the money into oversight. Consumable items other than drinks would carry a federal tax of 5 percent of the retail price. Hemp beverages would be taxed at 5 cents per milligram of THC and moved through a three-tier distribution system of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers kept in separate hands, the same structural wall that governs alcohol. Revenue would flow into a new federal trust fund for hemp oversight and consumer protection, with part of the beverage tax steered toward state enforcement of impaired-driving standards.

The bill would leave states room to go further but not to opt out: they could impose stricter rules, yet could not block compliant hemp products from passing through their borders. The alcohol-style design has drawn an unusual set of backers, including the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, the Hemp Beverage Alliance, and even the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association.

A hard path through Congress

Whether any of it becomes law before November is another matter. Barr had filed earlier versions as amendments to larger bills, only to see them blocked from floor votes by the House Rules Committee. He has said the effort faces resistance from an unusual coalition of alcohol interests, state-licensed marijuana businesses, and anti-legalization groups. Cannabis-industry lobbyists argue it would revive a market in intoxicating, synthetically derived products that Congress voted last year to shut down.

The politics cut in the sponsors’ favor in at least one respect. The Trump administration has spent weeks pressing Congress to scale back the November restriction, and Barr’s office says the White House supports the new bill. Both Barr and Craig are running for U.S. Senate this fall, and a bipartisan Senate companion is expected. There is also a Kentucky subplot: the November provision was championed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the same senator who wrote hemp legalization into the 2018 Farm Bill.

The calendar is tight, and no hemp fix has yet reached a committee hearing. Leaders of the Marijuana Policy Project have said averting the ban before November will be difficult, though they see room for a beverage carve-out or looser THC limits. For an industry that built a multibillion-dollar business on the last hemp definition, the question is whether Congress rewrites that definition again, or lets the ban it already passed take hold.