MURRAY – New regulations on intoxicating hemp products that were included as part of the bill that ended the federal government shutdown have divided Kentucky’s two Republican U.S. senators and appear to have created a significant amount of uncertainty within Kentucky’s hemp industry.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said in a news release Monday that he had secured language in the 2026 Senate Agriculture Appropriations bill to close a loophole that has allowed the sale of unregulated intoxicating THC products to be manufactured and sold nationwide. McConnell said the language still preserves non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products and locks in the original intent of the 2018 Farm Bill, which he said sought to create an agricultural hemp industry and not to “open the door to the sale o

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