President Donald Trump’s signing of a federal ban on intoxicating hemp products is one of the most consequential and best public health decisions in decades. That’s also true of the bipartisan effort in Congress to get the necessary language into a crucial appropriations bill. Love Trump and Congress or hate them, this was the right move — and long overdue.
To understand why, some history is important. The 2018 Farm Bill contained a provision that — against the intentions of its drafters, and indeed of every lawmaker who prefers that drug policy be based on science and evidence — made products containing THC derived from hemp legal.
The result: Overnight, a brand-new addiction industry based primarily on edibles packed with delta-8 THC sprang up. The Food and Drug Administration has linked this dangerous psychoactive chemical to a whole array of severe health consequences, both mental and physical. Worse, the products often came in packages imitating popular brands of non-drugged snacks, such as Skittles, and they were widely available at family-friendly retail locations, including convenience stores and gas stations, in states across the country.
Unsurprisingly, the massive and rapid influx of dangerous drugs under legal cover caused a public health catastrophe, even as promoters and advocates of hemp tried to tie these products to wellness.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 people called poison control about delta 8 between 2021 and 2025. There was a massive spike in pediatric THC exposures in Ohio. Those jumped more than fivefold, a recent academic study found, between 2018 and 2024; edibles were responsible for more than 60% of all-age exposures and clearly played a key role for children. In Kentucky, between 2023 and 2024 alone, the number of people sickened by marijuana enough to require a hospital visit leaped 43%.
These products are so dangerous that even deep-blue California stepped into the action with a ban in late 2024 that recently became permanent — though staying true to his state’s weed-loving ethos, Gov. Gavin Newsom only banned non-licensed sales of delta-8 THC, pushing again the faulty idea that regulations can somehow make products such as this safe.
For years, advocates of evidence-based drug policy and legislators actually concerned with public health — such as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) — led a fight to close the hemp loophole and end the exploitation. The fight faced serious obstacles, both from an intoxicating hemp industry battling tooth and nail to keep the cash register open and from their own political allies. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), despite the damage hemp-derived THC had done in his own state, stymied an effort earlier this year to ban these drugs and tried his hardest to make that happen again this time around.
Luckily for public health, that effort failed. This is a huge victory for public health and American families.
The struggle against intoxicating hemp is not over. There remains almost a full year before the ban goes into effect, which means that opponents will have plenty of time to try every legislative and procedural trick in the book to delay, deny, and defang this necessary law.
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But at the end of the day, this is an act of Congress with the president’s signature on it: It’s vastly less subject to reversal and interference than, say, an executive order on the issue, which is yet another reason the ban is a major public health victory.
When it comes to dangerous drugs such as hemp-derived THC, partisan feelings shouldn’t matter. Far too often, they do. Last week’s events prove they don’t have to.
Kevin Sabet is the president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a three-time White House drug policy adviser, and the author of One Nation Under the Influence: America’s Drug Habit and How We Can Overcome It, a new book on America’s drug crisis.
