Mike Simpson is one of Rhode Island’s biggest cheerleaders for hemp cultivation and the plant’s derivative products — remedies, he believes, that may help where pharmaceutical medicines cannot.
It’s that very reason Simpson helped co-found Rhode Island’s only outdoor hemp farm, where he says many of the business’ products ship all across the country.
But Lovewell Farms’ may cease operations now that Congress has approved reopening the federal government under legislation that would effectively ban hemp products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC. If approved by President Donald Trump, the ban will go into effect in a year.
“This might be the final straw,” Simpson said in an interview Wednesday. “I may have to shut my whole company down.”
Simpson doesn’t sell intoxicating products, but said crops grown at his Hopkinton farm can contain up to 1 milligram of THC in it, as is allowed under existing Rhode Island hemp regulations.
“I have 700 to 800 pounds of flower that I grew this year that under that law would not be legal,” he said.
Simpson said he would grow crops with lower concentrations, but as a USDA-certified organic farm, there aren’t that many seed suppliers he can buy from.
“We’re really at the whim of what those folks are providing,” he said.
The provision in the shutdown-ending appropriations bill was championed by GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in order to close a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp but inadvertently paved the way for the proliferation of hemp-derived THC products like infused drinks — products which states have since scrambled to either regulate or ban.
THC drinks derived from hemp were illegal in Rhode Island until August 2024, when the state’s now-defunct Office of Cannabis Regulation began allowing the sale of products containing low levels of delta-9 THC at licensed retailers, including vape shops and liquor stores.
The presence of hemp-derived drinks has led to a debate on whether such drinks should even be legal in Rhode Island. Members of the state’s recreational cannabis industry for the most part have been against allowing THC products to be sold outside licensed pot shops.
Since the start of the fiscal year on July 1, regulators in the newly-established Rhode Island Cannabis Office have crafted recommendations on dosage limits, packaging standards, labeling requirements, licensing conditions, and other ways to ensure children don’t accidentally consume the intoxicating drinks.
Cannabis Control Commission spokesperson Charon Rose said the regulators are aware of recent federal developments concerning hemp and hemp-derived products and are monitoring the situation.
“At this time, it is too soon to determine what impact these developments may have on Rhode Island,” she said in an email. “We remain committed to keeping stakeholders and the public informed as more information becomes available.”
But Nicholas Fede Jr., executive director for the Rhode Island Liquor Operators Collaborative, warns the ban could cause major disruptions in the growing beverage market. That will especially be the case should the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice decline to reclassify cannabis at the federal level. The feds still consider marijuana a Schedule I drug, meaning it’s subject to the strictest federal controls, which limit interstate distribution.
“That would upend how it comes to market in our state,” Fede said in an interview. “All of a sudden we couldn’t take credit cards for these items, we would have separate bank accounts.”
Fede said the best path forward is to establish clear regulations for hemp-infused drinks while allowing liquor stores to continue selling them.
“We’ve proven for 100 years we can regulate intoxicating products very well,” he said.
A “nefarious misinterpretation”
Kentucky’s other Republican U.S. senator, Rand Paul, attempted to strip the last-minute hemp language from the federal funding bill through an amendment on Monday, but his effort failed on a 76-24 vote.
Rhode Island’s Democratic Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse voted in favor of McConnell’s restrictions, though their offices noted the senators ultimately opposed the final budget bill.
“At the urging of the vast majority of the state attorneys general, they voted to table an amendment to strip this provision,” their offices said in an emailed statement to Rhode Island Current.
They were referring to a letter sent to key members of Congress in October by 39 attorneys general, including Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, in which they urged lawmakers to close the THC loophole.
“Industry actors have nefariously misinterpreted the Farm Bill’s legalization of low concentrations of hemp-derived delta-9,” the AGs wrote. “These products are being sold nationwide without consistent age restrictions, labeling standards, or safety requirements and are frequently packaged as gummies, candies, and beverages designed to appeal to young children.”
By itself, hemp produces little to no THC, the compound most commonly associated with cannabis intoxication, and is typically non-psychoactive when first harvested, unlike other cannabis plants.
But its potency can be increased by chemistry. Methods include soaking the hemp material in a liquid like butane or ethanol, applying enough pressure and heat to extract delta-8 or delta-9 THC compounds, or exposing the plant to acid.
“This is not natural,” Stuart Procter, co-founder and lab director for cannabis testing facility PureVita Labs in West Warwick, said in an interview. “You cannot trust anything you buy in a shop right now.”
Which is why Procter said he’s in favor of banning psychoactive hemp products until there are firmer regulations and standards for products.
“The hemp bill was never designed to allow hemp-derived delta-9 THC to be sold on the open market,” he said.
But Simpson’s interpretation of the 2018 bill is that any rules surrounding new hemp products are up to the states, which he said Rhode Island did to ensure safer products.
“We have consumable licensing, products have to go through testing, display THC amounts,” he said. “If we want a free market economy, and this is open and available, we shouldn’t be penalizing or punishing the businesses.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
