Late night action from the U.S.

Senate this weekend could have an impact on the hemp industry.

A $330 million business in Kentucky.

To understand the action.

Our Emily Prince caught up with Jonathan Miller of the US Hemp Roundtable.

Mr.. Jonathan Miller, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

So there was a major development in the hemp industry over the weekend in Washington, D.C.. The U.S.

Hemp Roundtable called this a victory.

The development was a victory.

So talk to us more about this news.

Sure.

This is the biggest legislative victory that we've had since hemp was legalized in the 2018 farm bill.

There was an effort last year, to ban, hemp and 95% of the products that are sold regularly on the marketplace.

And that brand, is supposed to go into effect on November 12th.

We had one last chance to delay that ban, to allow us some time to provide for a regulatory framework, to replace that ban.

And so there was a vote, on Saturday morning, early morning, 230, to, decide whether or not, the ban, moratorium would be extended in other months.

And we won that vote by a count of 31 to 30.

Excuse me, 6132.

So you brought up one of the things I wanted to ask you about some of the senators who are in favor of really enforcing that ban.

They mentioned that they feel that the hemp industry is marketing to children with brightly colored packaging that could look like candy.

Or they said that some of the products contain extremely high levels of synthetic THC.

I want to ask what your responses to that reasoning.

They're right.

We agree there are too many bad actors out in the marketplace that are selling synthetic products and that are marketing products to kids, or marketing them as copycat products, you know, fake Doritos or fake Skittles.

But the answer is not to have a complete ban on all hemp products.

And so what we think is the solution is not prohibition, but regulation.

Let's get legislation passed by December that will keep these products out of the hands of minors, that will stop this copycat, packaging, and that will ensure that natural products are the ones that are sold to adults.

And I want to kind of localize this to Kentucky.

So, you know, US senior Senator Mitch McConnell, he was one of the lead lawmakers in wanting to kind of rein in the hemp THC industry.

Of course, he's not on Capitol Hill because of his recovering health.

But what do we know about where other members of Kentucky's federal delegation stand on this issue?

Fortunately, Senator McConnell is the outlier of our delegation.

The rest of our delegation, or at least most of it, has been strongly supported since hemp.

This includes Andy Barr, who has just introduced a bill that would robustly regulate hemp products in the way that I've been explaining.

This includes Jamie Comer, who has been our champion for over a decade and who is, making sure that, the house, stays in favor of regulation and not ban.

And that includes Senator Rand Paul, who is fight the good fight for the hemp industry both this Saturday morning as well as, in the past.

Any snippet you can share with us for folks who might not be familiar of what that possibly looks like, of weeding out those bad actors in some of that legislation.

Yeah, you know, it, it would, ensure that you'd have to be 21 or over to purchase products with a strict, identification, procedures.

It would, put a ban on the importation of hemp.

And it would ensure that, we use the same kind of labeling and packaging, regulations that we do for other, like, products.

So we would treat hemp, tablets and tinctures like, we treat dietary supplements, and we would treat hemp beverages like we treat alcohol.

And, and so using those existing regulatory frameworks will help provide us a path forward.

All right.

Well, we will certainly stay tuned to see how the U.S.

House acts on this whenever they return from their break.

But Mr.. Jonathan Miller with the U.S.

Hemp Roundtable, thank you so much for explaining this topic for us.

Thanks for having me.

The U.S.

House is scheduled to return to Capitol Hill on August 31st and will consider the resolution then.

President Donald Trump's administration has also voiced support for regulating the hemp industry.