The Cole Memo

As debates around hemp’s place in the cannabis industry intensify, it’s frustrating to see efforts to re-criminalize a plant that represents one of the cannabis movement’s greatest wins.

Today, the state-legal marijuana industry face several challenges due to their federal illegality, including the burden of 280E tax restrictions, lack of access to banking services, inability to accept credit cards, and restrictions on direct-to-consumer sales or traditional retail channels. Marijuana brands are also unable to list on stock exchanges, register trademarks, raise capital efficiently, or file copyrights. At the same time, consumers grapple with strict purchase and possession limits, facing criminal penalties for exceeding them—restrictions rarely applied to most other legal products.

In contrast, the federally-legal hemp industry enjoys freedom from these challenges, benefiting both businesses and consumers with far greater flexibility, market access, and fewer restrictions on purchase and possession.

Why? The 2018 Farm Bill descheduled “hemp” from the controlled substances act, paving the way for unprecedented consumer access, market growth, and policy innovation—offering valuable lessons that the cannabis industry has yet to fully embrace. While some critics argue this wasn’t the law’s original intent, cannabis advocates have historically prioritized progress over ridiculing or scrutinizing a law’s supposed intent.

Early medical cannabis laws, for example, faced criticism and even became the subject of jokes about how easy it was to obtain a medical card in states like California. While cannabis undeniably offers real medicinal benefits, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge that these laws also paved the way for broader adult-use access.

The cannabis community didn’t reject these laws over concerns about the “narrow intent” of the law. Instead, they chose to embrace progress that ultimately led to today’s adult-use legalization.

Medical marijuana served as a springboard for broader legalization, including adult-use (AU) markets. Hemp now has the potential to pave the way for a more open and equitable cannabis market.

This paper explores the transformative potential of hemp policy and what it might look like to “finish the job” with full cannabis descheduling.

I recently discussed this paper on the podcast with a former cannabis regulator and a leading voice in cannabis policy. You can listen by clicking here.