Psychoactive hemp products will be banned unless Congress intervenes

Thanks to a bill approved as part of the package that ended the federal shutdown, intoxicating hemp products will be federally prohibited as of November 13, 2026, a year after President Donald Trump signed the legislation. Unless Congress intervenes, that ban will put an end to a $28 billion industry that offers psychoactive beverages , edibles , flower , and vape cartridges to consumers in dozens of states.

Congress accidentally authorized that industry in 2018, when it approved a farm bill that legalized hemp. That law defined hemp to include any part of the cannabis plant containing less than 0.3 percent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The definition also included "all [hemp] derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts,