By Kevin SabetShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberWith a federal ban on intoxicating hemp products officially signed into law, November saw the most consequential change in U.S. drug policy in decades—and people truly interested in fighting for public health should recognize this for the great victory it is.
Intoxicating hemp—which contains addictive chemicals linked by the FDA to everything from heart issues to nausea—was only ever legal for sale in the U.S. because of a legislative error in the 2018 Farm Bill. That mistake created a grey zone into which a brand-new addiction-for-profit industry promptly swooped. Their chief products were edibles and drinks packed with hemp-derived THC, chiefly the psychoactive delta-8 THC, which is nearly identical to the component of marijuana that produces a high, delta-9 THC.
...Within two years, hemp-derived THC had already become a public health scourge. Just take a look at the grim numbers.
Between 2021 and 2025 alone, more than 10,000 people called poison control about delta-8. Across America, from Ohio to Kentucky to California, edibles and other intoxicating hemp products drove up emergency room visits, poisonings and other dangerous THC exposures. Worst of all, as an October study from Ohio medical researchers shows, kids were bearing the brunt of the rise in THC exposures. Pediatric incidents around THC jumped more than fivefold between 2018 and 2024, a rise riven in the vast majority by edibles. Kentucky saw a similar dynamic, with the state’s own Injury Prevention and Research Center releasing a damning report highlighting the issue in April.
The move to reverse this legislative error began almost as soon as it became law (and that fight was one my organization, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, was honored to play a central role in). But thanks to the intoxicating hemp industry’s big-money PR pushes—amplified by a media that often uncritically repeated dangerously unfounded claims that edibles were really nothing to worry about—and its friends in Congress and at the state legislature level, efforts to right the ship on this public-health misstep faced repeated, successful opposition.
Until mid-November, when as part of the deal to reopen the government, a hemp ban passed. Yes, friends of the industry tried once more to stop it—Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) most notable among them, notwithstanding the damage hemp has done to the Kentuckians he’s supposed to be helping. But they failed, and failed decisively.
What changed?
The public woke up and started demanding lawmakers follow the data and the science. That’s why 22 Democrats crossed the party line to back a ban when it came down to the final vote on whether to leave it in the bill.
The new law gives a 12-month grace period before enforcement begins. During that time, the Food and Drug Administration will need to promulgate official regulations around hemp THC, and the law enforcement arms of the federal government will need to prepare themselves for what the reality will look like in 2027. Expect that period to be rife with efforts from industry lobbyists to push Congress on stopping or hinder the implementation of the law. Indeed, already a quick survey of news stories show the familiar, false slant that the ban is not a public health triumph but an economic setback. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And lest anyone doubt the power and efficacy of major federal legal changes, look at the current hemp fight in Ohio.
There, the state House has sent a hemp ban bill to the Senate. At the moment the details are still getting hammered out, but as written the bill would adhere to federal standards on this dangerous drug. That is in itself a very good thing—and it’s made even better by the fact that pro-hemp voices in the House as much as said the federal ban was hurting their efforts on the issue. Federal policy matters; fighting normalization matters.
In other words: When science trumps partisan politics in public health policy, everyone wins.
Dr. Kevin Sabet is the president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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