In a move almost nobody saw coming, the White House told Congress to protect hemp products before a broad federal ban kicks in this November. On June 25, OMB Director Russell Vought sent House Speaker Mike Johnson a letter asking Congress to ensure the “fair treatment of hemp products” — by passing a real regulatory framework or, at a minimum, delaying the recriminalization set for November 2026.
Read that one more time: the Trump White House is lobbying to keep intoxicating hemp THC products legal. For two years the loudest voices defending hemp-derived THC were the cannabis-beverage startups and, more recently, the restaurant and alcohol lobbies. Now it’s the Office of Management and Budget putting it in writing to the Speaker.
The ban in question closes the so-called “hemp loophole” left open by the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp containing less than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight. That threshold accidentally birthed an entire national market of intoxicating hemp products — delta-8, THCA flower, hemp THC seltzers, and gummies — sold in gas stations and smoke shops far outside the licensed cannabis system. The November standard would recriminalize most of it overnight, as Marijuana Moment reported.
Why the White House hemp letter matters
The Vought letter pointedly cited an amendment from Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) that would have kept many of those products legal while adding labeling requirements and new taxes — a regulate-don’t-ban approach. The House Rules Committee blocked that amendment from getting a floor vote, which is part of why the White House is now going over the committee’s head and straight to leadership.
This isn’t entirely out of the blue. Back in April, President Trump himself called on Congress to update the law so Americans could keep accessing the full-spectrum CBD products they rely on. The June OMB letter turns that statement into a formal executive-branch ask with a deadline attached.
Here’s the practical reality, though: a letter is not a law. Congress still has to act, and it has a long history of letting hemp deadlines arrive without doing anything. The Congressional Research Service has spelled out exactly how the change to the federal definition of hemp would ripple through enforcement — and the short version is that a lot of currently legal inventory becomes a federal problem on the effective date.
If you’re in the hemp beverage or CBD business, this is the most hopeful signal you’ve had all year — but hope isn’t a compliance plan. The smart operators are doing two things at once: lobbying for the delay or the regulatory framework, and building a contingency plan for a world where the November cliff arrives on schedule. We’ve been flagging this deadline for months on the show, and the politics just got a lot more interesting.
Watch for whether a hemp fix gets attached to a larger must-pass vehicle — a Farm Bill extension or an appropriations package — because a standalone hemp bill almost never moves on its own. The White House letter raises the odds that something happens. It doesn’t guarantee it.
Related: the June 29 DEA rescheduling hearing. Related: Hawaii’s own hemp crackdown starting July 1.
Watch the full episode
Tom Howard and Miggy break down all of this week’s stories on the Sunday, June 28, 2026 episode of Cannabis Legalization News:
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