Rob DeSalle—

The fall 2025 U.S. government closure and budget negotiations have had many negative impacts on life in America. In my opinion, one negative consequence of H.R. 5371 (Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026) is the insertion—some call it secretive—of anti-cannabis legislation. This rider (at 887 words it is slightly shorter than this article) was sponsored by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), whose state is a major producer of industrial hemp. The story is a bit convoluted, so let me try to decipher it.

The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 (known commonly as the 2018 Farm Act and officially as H.R. 5485) states that legal cannabis has a concentration ceiling of 0.3 percent of the psychoactive compound THC.^[1] Any cannabis product with levels under this concentration can be removed from the list of Schedule 1 drugs (which includes cocaine, heroin, and morphine). Any cannabis product that is over 0.3 percent THC of the total dry mass of the product is categorized as a Schedule 1 drug, which renders it illegal.

Concentrations under 0.3 percent are commonly seen in such industrial hemp products as rope and textiles. The rub to McConnell, and something that was not foreseen with the original 2018 Farm Act, is that this level has also been pretty easy to stay under for many of the psychoactive products—gummies, mints, and vape products, for example—sold in states where marijuana is legal.

Although Senator McConnell was involved in writing the 2018 Farm Act, the current amendment to that legislation is intended, by McConnell and those who knowingly passed the bill, to change the Farm Act language. The new language reads that any product that is more than 0.4 milligrams (mg) THC per container will be considered a Schedule 1 drug product and hence be illegal.

This limit, quite different from the 0.3 percent limit, allows the production of hemp products such as rope and textiles to proceed but is damning for most other cannabis-derived products. When one considers that a typical microdose of a THC gummy or mint starts at 1 mg—more than twice the legal allowable concentration—the legislation’s impact becomes obvious. This new definition will make it quite difficult, if not impossible, to produce and package affordable legal psychoactive THCA products.

The impact of this legislation goes beyond its intent to delegalize psychoactive products.

First, the legislation will have devastating economic effects on a growing multibillion-dollar industry. Some economists predict that it will lead to the loss of over a quarter million jobs, not to mention cost billions of dollars in revenue that cannabis products with THC in them can garner annually. 

Second, the legislation will also impact important research on the major products of cannabis: studies of how they work on our nervous systems and of their benefits and dangers as medicinals, along with clinical trials that are the foundation of the regulation of medicinals. Criminalizing the small amount of THC that H.R. 5371 does will also severely limit research on CBD (CBDA), a compound shown to be a promising medicinal.

In order to advance CBD as a medicinal, research on the compound is required. The problem is that cannabis plants contain both CBDA and THCA.^[2] Researchers who wish to work on cannabis as a source of medicinals will risk holding illegal amounts of THC in their labs. The plant and its compounds need to undergo clinical trials, but research will be effectively prohibited by this changed legislation. 

I am not advocating the use of THC as a psychoactive but rather am pointing to the shortsightedness and imprecise wording of H.R. 5371. Why would we want to criminalize research on something that could alleviate pain or other medical conditions? In the attempt to criminalize cannabis use with new legislation, Senator McConnell and his colleagues have simply complicated the matter with more imprecise wording. This legislation does not address the real problem with the legality and illegality of cannabis, which is federal versus state regulation. But that is another story.

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[1] In this discussion I use the terms THC and THCA (the nonpsychoactive precursor form of THC that is found naturally in a cannabis flower). This is because the plant itself technically doesn’t contain THC. The endogenous THCA that is so readily produced by the flowers of the plant needs to be chemically altered for the product to contain THC. This chemical alteration is called decarboxylation and is completed by heating the flower material to between 200 to 240 degrees F. To produce gummies, the THCA of the plant is pre-acetylated to THC and then cooked into the product. This is why to get the psychoactive effects of raw cannabis flowers you smoke them (to heat the THCA and accomplish the acetylation and transformation of THCA into THC). Just eating raw cannabis flowers is not only rather assaulting to one’s tastebuds but is also ineffective with respect to psychoactivity.

[2] There are some strains of cannabis with very low concentrations of THC relative to CBD. The so-called Charlotte’s Web strain, also known as Hippie’s Disappointment, is a good example of both a low THC strain and a strain important as a medicinal. Charlotte’s Web is used effectively as an anti-epileptic.

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Rob DeSalle is a curator at the American Museum of Natural History and a professor at the museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School. He is author or coauthor of many books, including A Natural History of Beer and Welcome to the Microbiome.

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