Fixing the hemp loophole
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By now, you know that the House passed legislation last night to reopen the government. But you might not know about a provision that would completely change the way hemp is regulated. It was tucked into the new farm bill, which was also approved last night, and funds the Agriculture Department through September. We'll hear more. Plus, are government institutions shifting resources away from the working class? Professor Clara Mattei argues that's the case.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The government reopens with some surprise extras. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. More now on the federal government reopening last night. There is a lot more in that legislation than turning the government back on. For instance, how hemp is regulated. It was tucked into the new farm bill, which was also approved last night, |
| 0:21.9 | among hemp's derivatives, textiles, and rope, and mind-altering substances. Marketplaces, Nancy |
| 0:27.6 | Marshall-Genzor has more. The new farm bill fixes a loophole, which allowed intoxicating hemp |
| 0:33.0 | products to be sold nationwide as long as they contained a fairly limited amount of the psychoactive |
| 0:39.0 | compound THC. Jim Higden is co-founder of cornbread hemp in Louisville, Kentucky. The Farm Bill |
| 0:45.6 | puts even stricter THC limits on hemp products, which Higden says are absurdly low. |
| 0:51.5 | So CBD products that people that adults are taking for pain, anxiety, and |
| 0:56.0 | sleep issues will become illegal. Backers of the new farm bill say convenience stores and gas |
| 1:01.4 | stations were selling intoxicating hemp drinks and vaping products to teens. There are no federal |
| 1:07.2 | age limits, although some states restrict sales to adults. Higden says he's fine with a |
| 1:12.5 | nationwide age requirement, but... We needed guardrails and what they gave us was a death sentence. |
| 1:18.3 | Higden says if he registered as a state dispensary, he couldn't sell nationwide. That argument |
| 1:23.5 | doesn't get much support from Chanel Lindsay. She's with the Parabola Center, a think |
| 1:28.5 | tank of cannabis advocates. She says the hemp industry was taking advantage of a loophole that allowed |
| 1:33.9 | it to bypass state cannabis laws. It's improper to have two separate systems where people are, |
| 1:39.5 | you know, one group is subject to regulations, oversight, regulatory oversight. And the other is not, she says. |
| 1:48.0 | The new rules for hemp products won't go into effect until November of next year. Jim Higden of |
| 1:53.3 | cornbread hemp plans to lobby for changes. But Chanel Lindsay says hemp and cannabis sellers should |
| 1:58.9 | just band together and push for one national policy for everyone. |
| 2:03.3 | I'm Nancy Marshall Genser for Marketplace. |
| 2:06.5 | Even with the government formally reopened, a lot of flights are still being canceled with the Transportation Department ordering 6% flights to be canceled at 40 airports again today. |
| 2:17.0 | There are just under a thousand |
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