How the THC industry got rolled in Congress

As you may have heard, the United States Senate has reached a deal on ending the longest government shutdown in history. As you read this, Republican senators—abetted by at least eight Democrats in the so-called Cave Caucus, and likely Senate Minority Leader and connoisseur of defeat Chuck Schumer—are advancing the appropriations bills in the upper chamber; the House of Representatives will then have to vote on whatever they put through. But the GOP has the votes in the House. Getting around the filibuster in the Senate was always the challenge. Now it has. And by the looks of things, it’s all over but the crying for the country’s booming hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) industry.

This past Friday, I filed a column at VinePair laying out how powerful trade groups both within the beverage-alcohol industry, and in the broader consumer-packaged-goods sector, had thrown their considerable lobbying muscle against THC, calling on Congress to close the “loophole” it created in the 2018 farm bill that allowed this multi-billion-dollar trade to emerge kinda-sorta out of nowhere earlier this decade. Orgs repping the THC trade, as well as the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of American and 50+ beer distributors, were among those trying to shepherd the fledgling business through the onslaught. The flurry of legislative horse-trading, cat-herding, and/or rat-fucking Congressional leaders undertook vis-à-vis THC in the intervening few days validated my analysis that the fate of the shutdown and the industry were bizarrely intertwined. And if things hold, the reopening of the government will mark the beginning of the end for the THC business.

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