When Donald Trump lately re-tweeted a CBD hype video, the U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR) moved quick. Inside days, the group despatched a fawning letter assuming the voice of “the hemp {industry},” whispering by Pricey Chief’s fuzzy ear, into the void.
However what USHR represents at this time isn’t hemp. It’s largely a gray-market enterprise in sketchy, artificial THC substances, constructed on a leaky regulatory system. It’s an unsightly child, born of greed and cynicism.
On the coronary heart of USHR are CBD producers, a lot of whom feed the intoxicating hemp sector downstream. A number of of them are actually instantly promoting intoxicating hemp merchandise: delta-8 and hemp-derived delta-9 THC edibles, vapes, and drinks that ship leisure doses of artificial THC as they cross by a loophole within the authentic 2018 “Hemp Farm Invoice.”
Intoxicating hemp has turn into the financial engine of the CBD sector (and little doubt the USHR). We’ve written about it — and warned about it — for years.
‘Pricey Sir’
“By signing the 2018 Farm Invoice into legislation, you ushered in a brand new period for the American hemp {industry},” begins the Oct. 6 letter to Trump. “We’re grateful and stay hopeful that your affect can save the $28.4 billion hemp {industry} that you just helped make doable.”
Whereas the letter is nauseating on its floor, the extra troubling side lies in its exaggeration and deliberate sleight of hand. It by no means as soon as mentions CBD, cannabinoids, or intoxicating merchandise, using “hemp” solely as if the phrase alone might sanitize the truth USHR is pimping for — a dodgy intoxicant market constructed on unregulated and doubtlessly harmful substances and merchandise.
This isn’t an accident. It’s deliberate branding. By cloaking intoxicating hemp within the mantle of “hemp,” USHR hijacks the moniker of a whole motion to present cowl to a twisted dwarf sub-industry. This doesn’t simply confuse the general public — it distorts coverage debates, scares off buyers, and arms opponents of hemp a straightforward speaking level. It ends in guilt-by-association and undermines the credibility that “true hemp” sectors have spent years attempting to construct.
False, damaging
“Congress is near passing a hemp ban” that might “wipe out 95% of the {industry},” the letter suggests. That’s false. Congress shouldn’t be near banning hemp. Lawmakers are struggling to deal with the unregulated intoxicating hemp monster that USHR adopted and fostered. There is no such thing as a threat to fiber or grain, hemp’s most promising sectors.
Whereas the $28.4 billion determine is plucked from skinny air, it could be correct to say that “95%” of the “hemp” market might be in danger. That vast chunk of the market largely consists of intoxicating merchandise that might doubtless be curtailed or eradicated if the definition of hemp had been tightened. That’s not destroying hemp. That’s cleansing up an out-of-control intoxicant commerce.
By even speaking about “hemp” in the identical breath as “ban,” harm is completed to the true hemp sectors. Each time that framing is repeated, it crops the concept your entire {industry} is illicit or in danger. It collapses the excellence between reputable agricultural and industrial producers and the gray-market intoxicant commerce, lumping farmers, builders, and meals producers in with gummy peddlers.
Origin story
None of this framing is unintended. It displays USHR’s evolution over the previous 5 years. From 2018 by 2023, USHR’s certification arm, the U.S. Hemp Authority (USHA), targeted on CBD wellness merchandise, grain, and private care objects. Intoxicating cannabinoid merchandise had been explicitly ineligible for certification. After the CBD increase that started in 2019 rapidly become a harsh bust, hemp cannabinoid corporations shifted to the makers of illicit intoxicants, that are produced from CBD and bought exterior state hashish techniques.
In October 2024, USHA launched an “Grownup Use Hemp Product Certification Program.” In a single day, the identical group that after excluded intoxicating merchandise accepted them beneath a distinct customary. It was purely about survival: intoxicating hemp represented the primary income supply.
Take away banks, commerce teams, service suppliers, and different non-hemp corporations from USHR’s present roster, and about 60 members stay—almost all in CBD. This membership consists of roughly 15 corporations that market merchandise that ship 5–10 mg of THC per serving – sufficient to get you excessive.
In the meantime, fiber and grain industries—fundamentals of a real hemp {industry}—are barely seen throughout the group. They’re talked about sometimes in coverage paperwork however lack critical legislative campaigns or public advocacy.
Indefensible
USHR claims it has “performed the best factor with self-regulation” within the letter to Trump. The irony is vivid. The group invokes accountability whereas overseeing a market marked by the absence of actual oversight. A voluntary certification shouldn’t be regulation; it’s a advertising device.
To this point, there isn’t any identified public document that USHR or USHA has ever suspended, sanctioned, or publicly criticized a member for non-conformance — both in the course of the early CBD period, or after the group embraced intoxicating hemp. At the same time as some members’ merchandise turn into indistinguishable from these in regulated hashish shops, their so-called “self-regulation” stays all on paper – a flimsy defend to beat back scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators, permitting enterprise as typical.
USHR is now powered by a cannabinoid sector that owes its survival to intoxicating hemp. That’s who they’re combating for — not fiber, not grain, and never the long-term credibility of hemp as an agricultural commodity. By invoking “hemp” as if they converse for the entire sector, they acceptable the {industry}’s historical past and legitimacy to defend a slender, illegitimate business agenda. That will serve their short-term enterprise pursuits. Nevertheless it makes them the incorrect folks to form federal hemp coverage.
