Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) cautioned fellow lawmakers on the Senate floor Wednesday against unregulated cannabis products designed to look like popular candies and snack foods, urging Congress to enforce upcoming restrictions on hemp-derived intoxicants.

Concerns Over Child Safety

Ricketts argued that manufacturers are intentionally packaging intoxicating hemp compounds to appeal to children and broaden their market share. He cited a local case in Nebraska where a three-year-old and a four-year-old were hospitalized for THC poisoning after consuming lookalike edibles found in their mother’s purse.

Ricketts noted broader national health data showing a ten-fold increase in THC poisonings among children under five between 2016 and 2023, along with a tripling of hospitalizations during that same period. He emphasized that this is a serious health risk problem, with 620 children under the age of five poisoned in 2024, and 100 of them hospitalized and put on ventilators.

Regulatory Loophole

Ricketts traced the emergence of these products to a loophole created in the 2018 Farm Bill. While that legislation legalized industrial hemp by limiting Delta-9 THC content to 0.3% by dry weight, manufacturers began chemically converting CBD oil into other psychoactive compounds, such as Delta-8 and Delta-10 THC, which remained unregulated under federal law.

Congress previously passed a provision in an appropriations bill to close the loophole by applying the 0.3% THC limit to all forms of the compound, giving manufacturers until November 12 to bring their products into compliance. However, a proposed extension in the current continuing resolution would push that enforcement deadline to December 11.

Ricketts and Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) have co-sponsored an amendment to strip the proposed extension from the resolution, allowing the November 12 deadline to remain in place.

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.