For years, gas stations, convenience stores, and online shops advertised “hemp” or “CBD” candies and vapes packaged in rainbow colors and marketed with words like “calming” and “natural.”

They looked harmless — even healthy — and were readily available to kids.

Rita Webb’s teenage son began using products labeled “CBD,” believing they were safe. But those “hemp” products contained high doses of psychoactive THC. By the time she discovered the truth, his mental health had spiraled, and he was in psychosis due to hemp intoxication. Her son took his own life on October 15, 2021.

Her loss is not an isolated tragedy — it is the human cost of a policy failure.

That failure was the THC hemp loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill. And now, in a rare moment of bipartisan clarity — including a Senate supermajority — Congress and the president have finally closed it.

The original intent of legalizing hemp in 2018 was simple: Support American farmers by enabling non-intoxicating hemp for rope, textiles, building materials, and other industrial uses. Lawmakers believed they drew a clear line between hemp and marijuana by capping delta-9 THC in hemp at 0.3 percent.

What Congress never foresaw was that capping only one form of THC would unleash an industry of chemists converting cheap CBD into potent intoxicants — delta-8, delta-10, HHC, THC-P, and high THCA flower — and selling them as “hemp” or “CBD.”

These products mimicked everyday candies and snacks, but were engineered to deliver high doses of intoxicating chemicals. Skirting the regulatory structures in place for delta-9 marijuana, they sold and marketed them in gas stations, convenience stores, and online without the safeguards required in dispensaries.

Child accidental poisonings spiked. ERs saw teens in psychosis, mental-health crises, and harmed by contaminated products. Parents like Rita were blindsided, trusting that  “hemp” meant non-intoxicating and safe.

Advocates once promised that hemp would be “rope, not dope.” Instead, the loophole unleashed a nationwide market of psychoactive drugs hiding in plain sight.

It’s a recurring theme — laws are passed with promises of protection, and then the industry races to exploit the loopholes.

States scrambled — banning products, capping potency, or folding intoxicating “hemp” into marijuana regulatory systems. Colorado — like many states — struggled with what the restrictions should be and ultimately pursued all three strategies.

Even so, none of it was enough. Interstate shipping and online sales kept a steady stream of dangerous, deceptive products flowing into every community, overwhelming state protections and putting kids at risk.

After years of deception and mounting harm to families across the country, a broad national coalition finally said, “Enough is enough.”

Few public health issues in recent memory have united so many stakeholders.

Thirty-nine state attorneys general — Democrats and Republicans, including Colorado’s Phil Weiser — urged Congress to act, warning that intoxicating hemp products had created an untenable public health crisis and an enforcement nightmare.

Major consumer brands added their voices as they watched bad actors churn out THC-laden candies, snacks, and drinks that mimicked their products down to the branding. These companies understood the danger: Consumers, including children, were unable to distinguish genuine products from THC look-alikes deceptively sold as “hemp.”

The Cannabis Regulators Association — representing state marijuana regulators nationwide — has made it clear that intoxicating “hemp” products undercut the safety standards states have spent years building. Licensed marijuana businesses agree: While they must follow standards for testing, labeling, and age restrictions, intoxicating-hemp manufacturers have been allowed to concoct and sell psychoactive products with no comparable standards. 

One Chance to Grow Up — the parent-led, nonpartisan nonprofit that we founded to protect kids after Colorado legalized retail THC — has been at the forefront of the fight to close this loophole. We’ve stood with hundreds of parents, youth, medical professionals, and mental-health leaders who have witnessed the dangers of these products up close.

For 12 years, we’ve worked to help families and policymakers understand the critical difference between THC and non-intoxicating CBD — an issue that matters more than ever as ultra-potent THC products flood the market, with retail sales fueling a THC arms race few ever imagined.

Working with Colorado lawmakers and community partners, we’ve helped secure critical youth safeguards: Clear THC and CBD labeling, pregnancy warnings, serving-size and package caps on edibles, limits on kid-appealing products, point-of-sale education on the harms of high-potency THC, and funding for the nation’s first statewide campaign on high-potency THC and the developing brain.

These safeguards have driven real progress in Colorado — steep declines in 18- to 20-year-old use, significant reductions in teen dabbing, and an overall drop in youth marijuana use. Many states have since adopted and strengthened these safeguards using Colorado’s experience as a guide.

However, intoxicating hemp products undermine that progress.

When U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the original architect of the policy framework for a legitimate and beneficial hemp industry, witnessed the law’s exploitation, he and other congressional leaders took action to address the situation.

This wasn’t a partisan move — it was a necessary response to a public-safety emergency. As  McConnell of Kentucky noted, the law doesn’t end the legitimate hemp industry; it ends the sale of unregulated intoxicants masquerading as hemp. It sets a total THC cap of 0.4 mg per package, bans synthetic and converted cannabinoids, and preserves legitimate hemp and CBD products.

In other words: If a product is going to get you high, it can no longer masquerade as hemp.

The new law gives intoxicating-hemp companies one year to comply: reformulate or join regulated THC markets. In states without legal THC, any business seeking to advance legal THC sales must now make its case in the open — not through loopholes and back-door shady tactics.

It’s a reasonable, common-sense solution, but industry opponents whine like we’re taking candy from babies. (In fact, the law is protecting young children from THC candies.)

For the first time since 2018, states will be able to block interstate shipments of intoxicating hemp, close the gray-market pipeline fueling youth access, and reinforce the integrity of regulated marijuana markets.

But the fight isn’t over.

The same bad actors who exploited the loophole now claim the fix will “destroy” them — and insist kids were never at risk. They’re already working to weaken the law when the science, doctors, and grieving families tell a different story.

The next 12 months are critical.

Colorado is positioned to lead. Attorney General Weiser, who helped sound the alarm early, understands the stakes.

Implementation must include state legislative leadership, active enforcement, responsible retailers, and continued public education on the products kids should avoid. Hopefully, Colorado’s two U.S. senators, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, will rethink their votes and stand with the bipartisan majority that closed the loophole. Supporting responsible THC regulation goes hand in hand with stopping the sale of deceptive, intoxicating products to kids.

Too many families know the consequences. We’ve sat beside hospital beds, hearing teenagers describe how they were fooled and forever harmed by products marketed as safe. And we need to stand with parents like Rita, who have endured the unthinkable — burying a child who never knew that “CBD” or “hemp” could mean high-dose THC.

Kids only get one chance to grow up. Congress and the president have taken an important step to protect that opportunity. Now it is on all of us to ensure this law provides the safety that kids in Colorado — and everywhere — deserve.

Diane Carlson is co-founder and national policy director for One Chance to Grow Up, protecting kids from today’s THC through parent education and groundbreaking policy.  Learn more at OneChanceToGrowUp.org.