Beer Lobby Wants Restrictions and Higher Taxes on Intoxicating Hemp Products
A trade group representing the American brewing industry released proposals on how Congress should regulate its competitors. Unsurprisingly, they recommend a heavy hand.
The Beer Institute is a trade organization that “represents the beer industry before Congress, state legislatures and public forums across the country…as the recognized and authoritative source of information on aspects of the industry.” Last week, it released a list of “guiding principles” calling for restrictions on intoxicating CBD products.
“The Beer Institute supports efforts underway by lawmakers to close an unintended federal loophole that is enabling the proliferation of unregulated intoxicating hemp products across the country, including those containing synthetically derived THC,” the statement said. “Intoxicating hemp and cannabis products are fundamentally different than beer and the taxation of them by government entities should reflect these stark differences just as governments at all levels in the United States have consistently reaffirmed the different tax treatment between beer, wine and hard liquor.”
While marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, Congress inserted a provision into the 2018 farm bill legalizing hemp by defining it as part of the cannabis plant containing “not more than 0.3 percent” delta-9 THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Soon thereafter, chemists began to manufacture intoxicating products with CBD derived from hemp that contained delta-8, a milder form of THC not mentioned in the farm bill.
The industry for intoxicating hemp-derived products exploded, and state laws have struggled to catch up. “State regulations governing hemp products vary widely and are unevenly enforced, creating a patchwork of rules that can change dramatically from one state to the next,” according to a policy brief by Geoffrey Lawrence and Michelle Minton of the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this magazine. There are currently no federal laws that specifically address these products, including their legality—they are simply assumed to be legal based on the phrasing of the farm bill, and Congress has struggled to pass an updated version for more than a year.
In its guidelines, the Beer Institute takes no posi
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