Get legally high while you still can.
The legal THC train for a ton of products is likely leaving the station. Neither you nor your fellow Americans are invited to board.
To be clear, we’re not talking about legal marijuana, like Colorado’s famous recreational program, or even medical marijuana programs in places like Arkansas and Mississippi. A big federal move last month brightened the future of all of those programs.
We’re talking about products that have been extracted from legal hemp, reformulated into synthetic weed strains, and stirred into your favorite beverage or gummy. We’re also talking about strains of cannabis that in flower form (bud) test below the state-mandated .3 percent of THC but when burned rise well above that, usually THCA.
Lawmakers from across the land have lost their appetite for Baked Bags, Double Doinks, bags of Cheetah Piss THCA flower, and the galaxy of get-you-high vape pens available anywhere gas is sold. They say the $28 billion hemp monster that grew from the 2018 Farm Bill is not what they ordered. Now, they’re sending it back. While some time is left on the clock for those gummies and giggle waters, experts don’t hold on to much hope that we’ll ever see their like again.
For these products in Tennessee, you may have until the end of June 2026. Across the country, you may have until mid-November 2026.
Oh, but Trump made weed legal late last year, right? No. He emphasized this fact when he signed the executive order, saying it “doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape, or form, and in no way sanctions its use as a recreational drug.”
What Trump did do was downgrade cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, a Biden-era idea that puts weed in the same category as Tylenol. It opens the door for medical research. It allows tax advantages for some marijuana companies. This is great news for those full cannabis programs in other states, but no program in Tennessee means no effect on us.
However, it could crack a door here. Now that cannabis is removed from the list of the worst drugs in America, it could trigger new discussions on recreational or medical marijuana in the state. Lawmakers here have long said they would only consider a medical or recreational program for Tennessee if the drug was removed from the Schedule I. We’ll be watching this closely this year.
But back on “legal” THC. When the federal stalemate on a national spending plan ended, so, too, did the freewheeling days of hemp-derived cannabinoid products. That’s the distinctly unsexy way to describe those weed gummies, THC bevvies, and chill-out chocolates you’ve come to know, love, and, maybe, even depend upon.
The Tennessee situation
Cannabis in Tennessee has been on a wild ride. Check our timeline (below) of changes. The ups, downs, lawsuits, rule changes, exceptions, products banned, and banned products allowed for a little while longer — all of it with a group of wary lawmakers who can change the entire industry with one vote — has made the cannabis business a game only for the iron-willed.
“Absolutely, extremely difficult” is how Clint Palmer described the cannabis business in Tennessee. He’s the compliance officer with the Nashville-based Hemp Law Group and has been lobbying the Tennessee General Assembly on hemp issues since 2014. He listed off a litany of major changes to the cannabis industry here in just a few short years.
For example, when the legislature changed the total-milligram-per-package rule last year, cannabis businesses had to recall every package they’d already sold from every cannabis store and gas station. Then they had to throw away the thousands of packaging containers they already had printed. They had to print new ones, make new products that complied with the new restrictions, package them, and sell them again.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous the amount of work and money that’s been put in,” Palmer said.
Why do it? In the hours of testimony before Tennessee General Assembly over the years, cannabis business people have said they truly do believe in the product. It has mental and physical benefits, they’ve said, and is a healthy alternative to alcohol.
Then, there’s the money. It is a lot of money, especially in a state that starves cannabis consumers of products so widely available in other states. In 2023, Whitney Economics projected a market here worth between $282 million and $734 million. Market watcher Vicente LLP said the Tennessee market was worth $245 million last year (with per capita sales of $40.50 per adult).
In a story in April, we reported that state experts estimated the size of Tennessee’s overall cannabis market to be about $120.4 million in 2023-2024. The figure was based on a U.S. market for hemp-derived cannabis products projected at $5 billion in 2026.
However, those experts projected cannabis sales of $226.7 million by 2026 if THCA remained legal. Tennessee tax collections on those products would have been $13.6 million.
THCA and smokable products make up around 75 percent of this total market, experts have said. But business-friendly GOP members still said, “No, thank you.”
In an unusually close vote last year, House members took a hard stance on the .3 percent THC limit and a full ban on THCA. In their view, cannabis businesses here gambled on an illegal product and lost.
“Six years ago, I carried the bill that allowed us to grow hemp in this state and have many of these products,” Representative Chris Todd (R-Madison County) said on the floor. “But I will tell you at that time, the [Tennessee Growers Coalition], well, I will say there were folks that deceived me and deceived our leaders and many others in this body.”
In that debate, Representative Kevin Vaughan (R-Memphis) spoke loudly among the GOP to keep THCA legal in Tennessee.
“I have a hard time that this body has told [businesses] that this is a new commercial venture in our state, and then, two years later, we’re going to turn the lights off,” Vaughan said. “Understand that even if we take [THCA out], these stores will still be in the business of selling intoxicants.”
Representative Sabi Kumar (R-Springfield) argued that the legislature got “carried away by the commercial advantages” of cannabis in Tennessee, claiming lives are torn apart by marijuana addiction and that was part of the reason he voted to ban THCA.
“Marijuana is playing havoc on our society,” Kumar said. “We talk about anxiety. We talk about mental health. We talk about schizophrenia and various psychological maladies.
“Yes, we blame the internet for it, but, my friends, I submit to you that marijuana, and its prevalent use, is playing a role in this malady that is affecting our society for that reason.”
Still, THCA and other intoxicating THC products will remain on shelves when the Tennessee General Assembly convenes in January.
Thanks to a deal made between the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) and industry group Tennessee Healthy Alternatives Association, these products can remain on store shelves until June 30th.
Also, a December 26th ban date on THCA products was halted last year on a temporary injunction from a Davidson County judge. The Tennessee Growers Coalition sued the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, claiming the agency overstepped with its new rules on THCA. That hearing is slated for February.
It seems all of this could leave the door cracked on the issue for, maybe, some new rules to give new life to the cannabis industry here. Palmer, the Tennessee cannabis lobbyist, was not optimistic.
The cannabis vote last year really was a tough battle, he said, one that split a typically unified Republican Party. With that and the rules now set firmly in place, Palmer thought there is little appetite for the legislature to bring the issue back.
That did not stop state Senator Raumesh Akbari from finding (and pushing for) a bit of hope hours after Trump’s executive order on marijuana.
“The federal government is moving in the right direction on cannabis and Tennessee lawmakers should take note,” Akbari said in a statement. “Our marijuana laws are stuck in the dark ages — overly punitive, out of step with our neighbors, and holding our state back.
“If Washington can acknowledge reality, Tennessee can, too. It’s time for the General Assembly to take a serious step forward on cannabis reform.”
The federal situation
Tucked way down deep in the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act of 2026 was a provision you might have missed (if you didn’t already pass out just reading the name of the legislation). Using a lot of jargony jargon, Congress quietly closed something now called the “hemp loophole.”
The 2018 Farm Bill opened this loophole. Its provision allowing states to regulate hemp (kept under .3 percent THC) cut space for that tiny loophole. Weed scientists took what was legal, transformed it, and created some incredibly potent synthetic products with it. People love weed and love getting intoxicated, they found out. So, through that tiny loophole (and with some incredible science) came a behemoth hemp industry now said to be valued at $28 billion.
The new federal legislation changed the limit on products to a total THC concentration of less than .3 percent. Compare that to the Nowadays “Micro Dose” cannabis-infused drink that is available online with two milligrams of cannabis per serving. That’s more than 150 percent over what the new limit will be. Other popular products are way more than that. Gigli Cherry Limeade THC cocktail is 10 milligrams in six ounces.
Under the new federal law, those all go away. It bans hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations and corner stores, or anywhere else, while preserving nonintoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products.
The Senate Appropriations Committee said the changes were made to prevent “the unregulated sale of intoxicating” hemp products in light of concerns surrounding the proliferation of hemp cannabinoid products. The new definition of hemp explicitly includes industrial hemp, likely as fiber products.
The reason Congress did this was really the same reason Tennessee lawmakers did it. They felt like they got duped. Senator Mitch McConnell (D-KY) said from the Senate floor in November that “industrial hemp and CBD will remain legal for industrial applications — such as seed, stock, fiber, grain oil — or used in drug trials.”
“Unfortunately, companies have exploited a loophole in the 2018 legislation by taking legal amounts of THC from hemp and turning it into intoxicating substances and then marketing it to children in candy-like packaging and selling it in easily accessible places like gas stations and convenience stores across our country,” said McConnell from the Senate floor in November. “This language merely clarifies the original intent of the 2018 Farm Bill, rooting out the bad actors and protecting the growing hemp industry.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) vehemently disagreed, calling the move “the most thoughtless, ignorant proposal to an industry that I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
“The numbers put forward in this bill will eliminate 100 percent of the hemp products in our country,” Paul said. “That amounts to an effective ban because the limit is so low that the products intended to manage pain or anxiety will lose their effect.”
When the hemp industry got wind of the change in Washington, they were not happy, of course. Congress and President Donald Trump had wiped out their entire business. That business in the U.S. is estimated to be worth $28 billion. If the law stands, that money would be wiped out, and industry groups like the U.S. Hemp Roundtable project layoffs of around 300,000 people.
In many ways, the fight at the federal level mirrored exactly what happened in Tennessee. And just like our situation, there is still time to make some changes. Just like our situation, too, a lobbyist isn’t hopeful.
“When you start getting into anything that touches things that are intoxicating or intended to be intoxicating or intended to mimic or be equivalent to cannabis products,” said Cory Harris, principal at Washington-based Furrow Strategies, “that’s where there’s just no appetite left in Congress to give any additional airtime to that conversation.”
Looking ahead
It’s hard to imagine going back to a true prohibition on almost all cannabis products in Tennessee. Through nearly a decade of our CannaBeat reporting, we’ve watched Tennessee awkwardly and slowly embrace cannabis as best it can.
It’s also hard to imagine any lawmaker closing the lid on an entire economic sector worth billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people. But that’s exactly where we sit now.
Will the hordes of cannabis-loving consumers in Tennessee — now used to THC in everything from ketchup to candies — go back to scoring a bag of grass from some shady dealer in a gas station parking lot? Or will state and federal lawmakers be convinced that the future has arrived, it’s green, and millions of consumers don’t want to go back?
Tennessee Cannabis Timeline
• Early 1800s: Hemp arrived in Tennessee with pioneer families from North Carolina and Virginia.
• 1800s: Hemp grown widely across Tennessee, especially Middle Tennessee.
• 1870: Census records show more than 150 tons of hemp grown in Sumner County alone. Used primarily in making sails for ships and rope.
• 1945: Hemp production declined after World War II.
• 1970: Hemp made illegal and labeled as a Schedule I drug.
• 2014: Congress passed the 2014 Farm Bill, which allowed states to create agricultural pilot programs to study the growing and marketing of industrial hemp.
• 2014: Tennessee General Assembly creates the Tennessee Industrial Hemp Research Pilot Program. Hemp cultivated for market and growth research only. No hemp plants or products could legally cross state lines.
• 2015: Only 49 growers licensed under Tennessee’s pilot program.
• 2018: Congress passed new Farm Bill. Allowed states and Indian tribes to regulate hemp production. Allowed hemp to move across state lines. Removed hemp plants and hemp products from the Controlled Substances Act. Hemp farmers got access to insurance and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs and grants.
• 2018: Tennessee hemp surged with new Farm Bill. Tennessee became the largest hemp program in the country with 3,957 growers on 51,000 licensed acres.
• 2019: Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) empowered to regulate hemp.
• 2023: New rules from the legislature moved cannabis products on shelves behind the counters of stores that weren’t 21 and over. The law established a 6-percent tax on cannabis products. Total THC amounts in products were changed from a maximum of 25 milligrams to 15 milligrams.
The rules threatened highly profitable smokable products. But industry organizations hoped to work through issues with state officials.
• 2024: TDA establishes a licensing program and permanent rules for hemp-derived cannabinoid product suppliers and retailers. These rules established a hard ceiling of .3 percent THC in all products.
Tennessee Growers Coalition (TGC) sues the state over the rules. It argued they would effectively ban profitable, smokable products like THCA.
Smokables were set to disappear from store shelves by December 26th.
A Davidson County judge granted a temporary injunction just before Christmas, allowing smokables on shelves while the court case proceeded.
• 2025: State lawmakers moved regulatory authority of hemp to the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC).
They also banned THCA products, arguing the smokable flower becomes an illegal form of cannabis in Tennessee when burned. The move stunned the Tennessee cannabis industry.
Sales of THCA products set to end January 1, 2026.
The TABC and the Tennessee Healthy Alternatives Association entered into an agreement that allowed for smokable products to remain on some shelves until June 30, 2026.
Congress passes new rules that closely mirrored what had been done in Tennessee. The national hemp industry reeled. The rules don’t go into effect until November 2026.