By Dec. 31st all hemp will need to be tested by DEA approved labs. Presumably, they will test using heat.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/hemp/dea-laboratories
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short of the undertaker replacing @Cassin down in DC, I see no way to save intoxicating hemp on the federal level
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So the all the smoke shops and hemp shops will close down? Will this make traditional market prices rise?
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No, as hemp outfits will most likely unload their entire supply on the black market at a loss. It will be a rough year for everyone
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The current revision to the Farm Bill makes this DEA requirement no longer necessary. The new language says that it must be a USDA certified lab. There are many of those unrelated to DEA stuffs.
Also - even if for some reason the Farm Bill doesnāt get legs - there are like dozens of DEA testing labs already registered for testing hemp. Including @kcalabs - so I wouldnāt be quite as worried, eh?
So maybe less - OH SHIT and more, ah yes, we are prepared. <3
Depending on the state, many of these are already operating illegally. Like the one that is down the street from my house which isnāt registered with the state. Its a super easy form, but they havenāt done it. Donāt know why. So they get nasty grams semi-often.
I donāt see a big change here - except in states where the police are already jumping up and down on people. But perhaps I could be wrong. Technically all of these products except for vapes and flower are already illegal - because the FDA said no to cannabis derived materials in FD&C - that hasnāt stopped wellā¦ most people?
I think you are spot on here with one caveat. For those hemp operators working directly with licensed cannabis operators - and there are many - they may see a boon, as taxation may be lessoned due to rescheduling, which could lead to new product development and other such things.
And its also possible that some states (Iām looking at you Texas!) will double down on the hemp program, so people will still have place to operate.
The amendments are still churning through - we are not at the end game yet. Its very possible many things will still be allowed.
Its also very possible that many of the things I have been asking us not to sell for fear of backlash (THCa flower, high potency THC edibles, edibles that are packaged to look like name brand snacksā¦) may have caused the legislators to get so angry that they will take away the ability to do ANYTHING. Iām hopeful that is not the case.
A few states seem to be opening up. Some states are moving to get rid of everything (like Illinois is doing as I type this). But many are still in a wait and see pattern.
Seems like it will take a LONG TIME for updated final rules - so think about how it was in 2018/2019 with people not really knowing where enforcement is going to come. Possibility for those interested in taking big risks to make those sweet dollars for being willing to put their dicks on the table.
Personally - I try to keep it in my pants. Iām mildly risk averse, even having been in the industry for so long and an advocate my whole life.
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I agree with everything except that the legal operations forwarding cannabis evolution:
Look at how fast cannabis advanced when the hemp market came about. Those legal operations never really added much value.
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As a legal operator, this really hurt my feelings. I think I have contributed a lot to my local economies, innovation for the industry, international standardization, and some pretty big lifts for the decriminalization and legalization efforts.
But I suppose it could just be the hemp operators and traditional market operators doing all the work out there. I certainly appreciate what I have seen come from those before me in the legacy markets (including some sexy genetics!).
But I havenāt really seen any intense innovation in hemp. Most of the tech was already published and is being repurposed. Probably there are things where that is not the case - but the sheer amount of things I was able to bring to my businesses merely by knowing how to read publications from the 70ās and 80ās and understanding existing industries to bring in things like purification chromatography, work with polymers, making things that are not-water soluble more solubleā¦ all that stuff was things I did in pharma for years before ever considering cannabis.
Perhaps Iām just far on the outside - but it usually seems that other than starting in the Army and finishing doing research in organic chemistry, my path is not that different than many.
My wife got sick. She needed cannabis. I used every skill I had to get it for her and continue to do so for her and others around the country. -shrug-
Haha!
Iām not really sure what you mean when you say āfast cannabis advancedā but Iād sure love to know more. Right now they are trying to kill hemp across the country - if you know of specific things that only exist because of hemp, especially where they can translate to other industries, please share so I can add them to the reasons they should STOP FUCKING AROUND.
<3 Thanks!
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Do you feel that you are the rule or the exception?
I must have experienced another legal cannabis side. I remember how well information was shared in the pre-hemp days, and how well information was shared after the 2018 farm bill.
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Hmmm. Interesting question. I came here a few years ago because other people also wanted to help people level up and share the love.
Iāve been a professional society (NCIA) for almost a decade now - and almost all of those companies are licensed operators and have been sharing and helping since the inception of the organization.
Mostly I saw a shift away from small businesses to larger businesses about 4 or 5 years ago. Which kind of coincided with the Farm Bill, but I donāt think thatās really what caused the change. I think investors just thought they could make good money and interest rates were so low so they tried. Now they are higher and so less capital available for everyone.
I started with a cooperative in Colorado in 2013 to get my wife consistent medicine. There wereā¦23 other people in the cooperative. We served plenty of patients. That went away with licensed facilities and REC. I switched from there to helping people with their basic SOPs and dealing with special use licenses. Then over to doing hemp in 2018 - because I was living on the eastern plains and we were planting a full crop circle worth of hemp. Which was way too much for back then, but we invented some kick ass shit that people are still using today. Like bigger blades on S harvesters and conveyors that drive straight into chop driers for faster harvesting. And software to read drone video footage and tell us where the males were and if the crop had enough water/nitrogen.
Worked on some water soluble solutions - getting around 45mg of CBD into 8 ounces of water. With bitter blockers you couldnāt tell it was there - but it wasnāt 100% clear. -shrug-
Worked on some water based acid/base extraction activities for CBD - found that we could do it but then we had so much fucking crude cake that we had to invite another way to distill. Oof - that was terrible. hahaha
Now its all licensed operations for me. That doesnāt mean I donāt help out hemp folks - I do, I did just in the last 2 days to try and save hemp cannabinoids in Illinois for instance.
There are other people like me out there - I spent a week with several dozen of them in DC 2 weeks ago, you know?
Sometimes I think it was that we didnāt know back in 2013. I didnāt build my first FFE until 2019. I didnāt build my first hydrocarbon extractor until 2017. It was all just plants and dry sift back in 2013-2015 for me. Were other people doing more? Maybe. But having good flower was all I needed and really terrible edibles. 
Iām better with edibles now thanks to @MillerliteRN and many others who shared their recipes with me. <3
And thank goodness cause my wife was starting to say I was trying to kill her with my hash cookies. hehehe
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I bet that fire āthcAā flower will.be cheap fhenā¦dont be fooled its tested wet is what i was told here w no heat
They sell 99.9% thcA diamonds and live resins hereā¦d8,d9,hhc,thcp and thcA liquid diamonds carts here tooā¦ the thca liquid diamonds ones are decent
And the locally grown thcA flower u cant tell difference bc there isnt oneā¦over time that thca flower wiÄŗl be very high in thc or w a lighter
The high THCa exotic indoor flower here sold outta clear tubs and sealed right there have the name wrote on it and thca flower thats it
The big company names have the same thing just not as good and burns ur throat in bowlā¦the locally grown stuff doesnt
All i see when i walk in is the beginning of a medical Marijuana storeā¦im sure theyll take it from us by the end the yearā¦one county already has i know took all the thca stuff off the shelf and arrested several owners for selling cannabis
I like to compare it to what every trap house has for there mids and highsā¦smokes same taate same feeka same is the sams
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I am not saying your work is not important. I am saying the velocity of information sharing and new technologies in cannabis have taken off in the last few farm bill era years. I havenāt seen poop soup since like early 2019.
We need to start treating these people like the sovereign citizens of weed. Just straight up making up their own rules to follow.
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If you have watched democrats legislate cannabis and believe what you do im truly amazed. Should be studied honestly, a gay republican wrote prop 215, āliberalsā gave us 64. Republicans gave us the hemp bill, democrats tried introudcing the more act that introdcued a 25% tax on top of state taxesā¦
This goes to any of your comment likers as well. Obama acted like he was gonna legalize weed when he wss up for election and raided 3x the dispensaries than the bush administration which stated it was against it wasā¦ kamala harris prosecution record in āliberalā san fran.
Now a democratic led govt wants to work with the dea and yall think its a good idea?!?! What the fuck yall need to stop smoking converted material 
Whats worse is this is the DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY ā¦ when did cannabis heads become government boot lickers? Especially agencies tasked in ruining lives over a fucking plantā¦
Yea naw but yall should really get fucking a clue sorry not sorry.
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We should start supporting only chinese equipment sellers and the great country of china under general xin ping if were going to propaganda so hard. 
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This has been the definition of the final rule from the USDA since the beginning. Some courts appeared to find that the statute didnāt give the power than the USDA thought it did to say just how cannabis needed to be tested, which I think opened up a floodgate of THCa products. Of course there was going to be backlash. Always good to see Shane out there fighting the good fight. I have enjoyed working with him in the past - challenging the government is never easy.
Iām not quite sure what @og_extracts is trying to say here. The DEA is part of the government - regardless of which party is in control.
He sure fucking did and then signed a bill into law that removed all funding from the DOJ for enforcing against state legal medical operators. A provision which has been renewed every year since 2015. And started before that with the Cole memo which directed his DOJ to stop fucking cracking down on licensed operators around the country. And after a searing backlash from medical patients around the country due to his unprecedented raids on medical patients.
And why was that? Because we fucking showed up to ask for change. We didnāt sit in the shadows crying in our milk and giving the government the finger. We worked the political process. We wrote our representatives and senators. We stomped our feet in their officers. We said NO MORE loudly and with a clear voice.
And they FUCKING LISTENED. They listened so loudly that that activity stopped and change started to happen.
Change that is still happening now. Change that is bipartisan. Change that cares about the people being impacted.
It may not be enough for everyone out there. And there are a fuckton of people that donāt vote and donāt give a fuck. But those people have always been there. While the rest of us activists work hard every damn day to improve the lives of those around us.
I donāt think that every person needs to show up on the hill. But I do think that every person should be engaged. Thatās why I post about what is happening all over the country. Because if you are not clawing your way to standing on the table, then someone else is. Someone who may or may not share your interests.
I always love to remind myself about this. To me this is a huge win for the battle we have been fighting since before I was born. Here was a person dedicated to using the rule of law to harm families because she thought that the law was right. And then after LISTENING to families and patients and business owners - she realized that the law was WRONG and is now actively working to change the law around the country.
This is the kind of story we want to hear. A change in heart. Because its us against a bunch of people that think we are criminals and want to hurt them and their children and communities. And they are not going away - so we have to change their hearts.
And we know that as we change their hearts other hearts will get angry (fuck, look at how LGBT rights has polarized some people while softening others?!) but it is worth the effort. Stop ripping apart families over a plant. To give access to safe affordable medicine to all that want it. To give space to the sacred plant which was here long before our government even existed.
But such is life. People always get angry about working with the government to get anything done. As though there is any other way to do it in a police state like ours.
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Was with you til you defended that bitch Kamala.
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I donāt tend to call women bitches. And its not a defense of Kamala - its a recognition that the work I have done with hundreds of other activists around the country is working. Even on people as wrong sided in their power as VP Harris.
Thatās history right there. Changing the conversation. Removing the stigma. Fixing the laws.
She is just one of many who have realized the wrong of their actions and apologized. Not having to fight someone who had so much power anymore is a win for us.
Regardless of if you like her or not. 
We won this one. And we should relish every win.
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Appreciate you always. I call em like I see em tho lol.
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