Missouri Lawmakers Pass Bill To Ban Intoxicating Hemp THC Products, Sending It To Governor

The legislation also has provisions to protect marijuana consumers’ privacy and cannabis workers’ right to unionize.

By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent

A bill now heading to Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s (R) desk would take all intoxicating hemp products off the shelves starting November 12—including THC seltzers currently sold in bars and grocery stores—aligning state law with an upcoming federal ban.

If Congress reverses course and decides to allow the sale of these products, Missouri would only permit them to be sold in licensed marijuana dispensaries. And if Congress chooses to delay the ban for a couple years, Missouri would still ban all products, except for the sale of intoxicating beverages.

The House passed a bill sponsored by Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon with a vote of 126 to 23. It passed the Senate Tuesday night and now heads to the governor for his signature or veto.

The bill also includes provisions to protect marijuana consumer privacy and cannabis workers’ right to organize, which were amendments state senators added late Tuesday evening.

Hinman’s legislation was one of the first bills to get House approval this year. He previously told The Independent the legislation was a priority for the state’s leadership, including the governor, attorney general and House speaker.

Intoxicating hemp products with as much as 1,000 mg of THC are being sold in smoke shops—outside of Missouri’s licensed marijuana dispensaries—and they aren’t regulated by any government agency. Missouri lawmakers have failed to pass legislation regulating these products since 2023.

The bill comes amidst uncertainty on where the federal government will finally land on regulations for these products.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December ordering his administration to work with Congress to develop a framework that permits full-spectrum CBD products, which have a trace amount of THC.

On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rolled out an initiative that could cover $500 per year worth of hemp-derived THC of 3mg per serving and CBD products for eligible users. The products under this program would be illegal in Missouri under the bill approved Thursday.

Correction: This story updated to clarify where intoxicating hemp beverages can be sold.

This story was first published by Missouri Independent.

Hawaii Senators Push Congress To Federally Legalize Marijuana And Clear Past Convictions

Hawaii senators have approved a pair of resolutions calling on Congress to federally legalize marijuana, support state efforts to clear people’s conviction records and take steps to facilitate access to banking services for companies in the cannabis industry.

“Even though states have made significant policy changes with respect to cannabis, the federal Controlled Substances Act still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I substance,” the measures advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 5-0 vote on Thursday say, “which means that medical cannabis dispensaries and other cannabis-related businesses continue to face the prospect of federal seizures, forfeitures, arrests, and other enforcement and prosecution actions.”

The legal recreational cannabis industry could generate more than $1 billion in sales in Hawaii by its fifth year of operation, according to a recent state-commissioned study, the resolutions point out.

Current medical marijuana businesses in the state “are hampered by their inability to obtain the full spectrum of private banking services under federal law,” the measures sponsored by Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D) say, adding that “arrests and convictions for cannabis possession remain on record and often impact the ability of a person to obtain housing and employment.”

SR58 and SCR64 call on Congress to:

(1) Remove cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act;

(2) Provide support to states that are in the process of clearing defendants’ records of cannabis offenses; and

(3) Facilitate access to the full spectrum of banking services for cannabis-related businesses.

The legislation as introduced noted that alcohol and tobacco don’t fall under the Controlled Substances Act, “even though the regular use of those substances often leads to physical injuries, psychological and social harm, the onset of chronic and fatal illnesses, and other negative impacts on individual and public health.”

But the panel removed that language, with Sen. Karl Rhoads (D), the chair of the committee, saying that the arguments about other substances “seem irrelevant” to the marijuana resolutions.

If passed by the legislature, the resolutions will be transmitted to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, as well as the top Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and each member of Hawaii’s congressional delegation.

Earlier this week, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee adopted separate resolutions calling on the state attorney general and health department to request an exemption from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stipulating that Hawaii is permitted to run its medical cannabis program without federal interference.

—Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.—

Although Hawaii senators recently approved a bill to legalize low-dose and low-potency marijuana, the legislation didn’t advance through required steps before a key deadline, and so it is dead for the year.

A separate marijuana legalization bill that contained provisions making the reform contingent on changes to federal law or the state Constitution, SB 2421, was deferred for action. Both Senate and House panels additionally deferred action on a measure to allow for the sale of certain hemp-derived cannabinoid products.

Those actions comes after key House lawmakers signaled that cannabis legalization proposals would not be advancing in the 2026 session, citing a lack of sufficient support in their chamber.

Last month, a Hawaii Senate committee separately passed legislation to allow patients to immediately access medical cannabis once their registrations are submitted, instead of having to wait until their cards are delivered as is the case under current law.

Meanwhile, a Hawaii House committee last week approved a Senate-passed bill that would create a psychedelics task force responsible for studying and making policy recommendations on providing access to breakthrough therapies such as psilocybin and MDMA.

Legislation to allow qualifying patients to access medical marijuana at health facilities is also advancing this session.

Trump Proposes To Keep Protecting State Medical Marijuana Laws From Federal Interference While Blocking DC From Legalizing Recreational Sales

President Donald Trump is requesting that Congress continue to protect state medical marijuana programs from federal interference while also maintaining a policy that has blocked local officials in Washington, D.C. from legalizing recreational cannabis sales.

In his Fiscal Year 2027 budget request sent to lawmakers on Friday, the president proposed for the first time to maintain the rider that prevents the Department of Justice from spending any money to “prevent [states] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

Last year and each year during his first term in office, Trump had requested that Congress delete the medical marijuana provision from annual appropriations legislation.

As it appears in the president’s new budget proposal, the medical cannabis rider reads:

“SEC. 528. None of the funds made available under this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to any of the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, or with respect to the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, or Puerto Rico, to prevent any of them from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

As is the case with the version most recently enacted into law, the proposed provision would continue to omit Nebraska, which has a medical cannabis law, for reasons that are unknown.

President Joe Biden had consistently proposed to continue the medical cannabis rider in his budget requests—though President Barack Obama, like Trump, had sought to delete it.

Congress has the final say on appropriations legislation language, however, and has not followed through on any president’s request to delete the medical marijuana protection since it was first enacted in 2014—though lawmakers have also declined to expand the protections to cover state recreational marijuana programs.

After signing prior appropriations bills into law that included the medical cannabis protection in contravention of his request to delete it, Trump on three occasions during his first term issued statements that specifically said his administration “will treat this provision consistent with the President’s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws of the United States”— implying he was reserving his right to ignore the rider.

Now, however, he is requesting that Congress continue the state medical cannabis protection policy, a move that comes months after the president issued an executive order directing the attorney general to complete the process of moving marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to Schedule III.

Meanwhile, Trump is also proposing to continue a separate provision that prevents District of Columbia officials from legalizing and regulating adult-use marijuana sales in the nation’s capital.

The policy, which has been championed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), appears in Trump’s budget request as follows:

“SEC. 809. (a) None of the Federal funds contained in this Act may be used to enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.

(b) No funds available for obligation or expenditure by the District of Columbia government under any authority may be used to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative for recreational purposes.”

While Congress has continually blocked D.C. from legalizing recreational marijuana sales with the annually approved rider, local officials have worked to expand access through the existing medical cannabis market by, for example, by allowing residents and even visiting tourists to self-certify without the need for doctors’ recommendations.

This week, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) proposed local legislation to allow medical marijuana companies to partner with local breweries and distilleries to produce cannabis-infused, alcohol-free drinks.

It is possible that moving marijuana out of Schedule I, as the administration is still considering doing, would give D.C. a workaround to the provision as it is drafted, but some observers have raised questions about the implications of the rider’s use of the term “tetrahydrocannabinols derivative,” which is not defined in federal law.

The president’s budget additionally proposes to continue a rider protecting state hemp programs from federal interference.

The hemp provision reads:

“SEC. [737]724. None of the funds made available by this Act or any other Act may be used—

(1) in contravention of section 7606 of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (7 U.S.C. 5940), subtitle G of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, or section 10114 of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018; or

(2) to prohibit the transportation, processing, sale, or use of hemp, or seeds of such plant, that is grown or cultivated in accordance with section 7606 of the Agricultural Act of 2014 or subtitle G of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, within or outside the State in which the hemp is grown or cultivated.”

Finally, due to the way that presidents’ budget requests are formatted depicting proposed changes to previously enacted spending legislation, Trump’s new proposal also contains language showing the removal of provisions to redefine and recriminalize certain hemp THC products that he signed into law last year and that are set to take effect this November.

Because that legislation changed federal law on an ongoing basis, it does not need to be reenacted annually in the way that the policy riders do—so Trump’s budget deletes the provisions from being duplicatively included in FY2027 appropriations legislation.

The president’s budget request now heads to Congress, where lawmakers will craft a series of spending bills to actually fund the government with provisions that may differ from the president’s proposals.