GOP Lawmakers ‘Forced’ Trump Into Signing Hemp Ban, Longtime Ally Roger Stone Says

Hemp THC ban: Roger Stone says Republicans forced Trump’s hand. That’s the headline and the hangover. The federal hemp THC ban—tucked into a must-pass spending bill—now stalks the country’s legal cannabis side streets like a bouncer with a clipboard, ready to decide who gets in and who’s shut down. Stone, equal parts bruised-knuckle operative and late-night raconteur, says the president didn’t want to do it, that GOP lawmakers jammed the prohibition into a package he had to sign to keep the lights on. In the same breath, he casts Trump as the man who birthed the modern hemp industry with the 2018 Farm Bill. It’s a clean narrative in a dirty business. But the truth is stickier than a dab tool left in the sun—there’s public-facing support from the White House for the prohibition language, even as the political family insists the patriarch was dragged to the altar. Meanwhile, the Michigan-sized elephant in the room: a sweeping rewrite of what “legal hemp” even means, and a clock ticking down one year to upheaval in the Michigan cannabis market’s cousin—America’s hemp economy—if nothing changes.

Stone’s defense hinges on two things: timing and legacy. He points to the Farm Bill Trump signed, the moment that put hemp—CBD, fiber, grain—on the map after decades in the desert. He says the man never wanted to kneecap a sector that created jobs, small-town investments, and shelf space in pharmacies next to melatonin and multivitamins. The counterpoint: the administration indicated it supported the ban language. And yet, there’s Trump’s own soft-focus nod to CBD’s therapeutic promise, a wink to seniors and chronic pain sufferers who swapped ibuprofen for cannabinoids. Politics loves a contradiction; this one comes with a sell-by date. The ban won’t bite for another year, a runway for Congress to pivot from blanket prohibition to actual regulation of consumable hemp products—if they can muster the spine. If you want Stone’s words straight from the source, he’s already put them on the record:

So what actually changes with this federal hemp THC ban? It’s not a tweak; it’s a sea change. For seven years, “hemp” meant less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight. That tidy threshold spawned a galaxy of loopholes: delta-8 gummies, THC isomers, and a million labels that danced around intoxication while swearing fealty to the statute. The new law slams that door. It recalculates “total THC” to include delta-8 and other isomers and even snags “any other cannabinoids” that have similar effects, as determined by health regulators. It bans intermediate hemp-derived cannabinoid products marketed to end users. It disqualifies synthesized compounds and cannabinoids not capable of being produced by the plant. And in a move that reads more like a death sentence than a safety standard, it caps legal hemp products at 0.4 milligrams per container of total THC or similar-effect cannabinoids. Not per serving; per container. Within 90 days, FDA and friends must publish a taxonomy: all cannabinoids the plant can naturally produce, all tetrahydrocannabinols that occur in Cannabis sativa L., and every other compound marketed as THC-adjacent. What sounds like clarity might function as a blacklist. If you’re picturing CBD getting caught in the crossfire, you’re not alone.

There’s a one-year fuse on this prohibition, and the scramble has already started. Kentucky’s governor says hemp should be regulated at the state level, not buried under a federal ban. Veterans’ advocates warn that shutting down consumable hemp could “slam the door” on medical research and access. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Rand Paul pushed to strip the ban; he picked up support from 22 Democrats and, in a plot twist, Sen. Ted Cruz. The House had a mirror attempt from Rep. Thomas Massie. Both went down because leadership didn’t want to ping-pong the spending bill back to the other chamber. The federal posture remains a Rorschach test: in one chapter, the Trump Administration Sees Marijuana As A ‘Hazard,’ Federal Prosecutor Says, Drawing Criticism From Lawmakers And Advocates; in another, the bureaucracy quietly makes room for livelihoods with Working In State-Legal Marijuana Sector Won’t Disqualify People From Certain Federal Benefits, New Trump Administration Rule Says. States, as usual, are writing their own survival guides—consider the slow, deliberate chess move in Richmond: Virginia Lawmakers To Unveil Marijuana Sales Legalization Plan They Want To Pass In 2026 Under New Governor. The real question is whether Congress can trade bans for guardrails—age limits, potency caps rooted in science, testing, labeling—before the runway ends and small operators become collateral damage.

Strip away the spin and you’re left with a country deciding, again, what to do about a plant. Hemp isn’t a vibe; it’s a supply chain. Farmers, processors, labs, truckers, shop owners. People who borrowed against futures that the law just blurred. Stone calls the new move “prohibition by the back door.” He’s not wrong about the shape—sweeping, imprecise, engineered to solve a loophole by burning down the house. The cultural current is running the other way; from psychedelics in politics—see the eyebrow-raising dossier that RFK Still Uses Psychedelics, Book From Journalist Who Allegedly Had An Affair With Him Implies

—to states crafting adult-use cannabis frameworks while Washington still argues about definitions.

If Congress spends the next year circling the wagons instead of writing workable hemp regulation, we’ll wake up to empty shelves, shuttered barns, and a black market fat and happy on our mistakes. If they get serious, we’ll see a durable system: intoxicants corralled, CBD protected, lab-made knockoffs squeezed out, and consumers treated like adults. Until then, it’s last call for clarity. And if you prefer your cannabinoids clean, compliant, and craft over chaos, consider a discreet visit to our shop.