On Trump's Hemp/CBD Ban

Coming off the disastrous gov't shutdown, Our Liar in Thief passed a sneaky bill that quietly undoes all the progress of the Farm Bill of 2018 which legalized hemp/CBD products containing 0.03% THC or less.  And just like that, a $28 billion industry was wiped out overnight.  That's right:  this tight-eyed motherfucker, who proudly posed with a pornstar while appearing stoned out of his orange gourd, has banned hemp products:

High much?

The deal was pushed by ancient-ass Mitch McConnell, notorious recipient of alcohol & tobacco industry funding.  Why wiping out all these paying jobs would be considered part of the "deal" to reopen the government is beyond me, and whether it should even be legal for such consequential things to be tacked on at the end of bills nobody reads before signing is highly debatable.  If it's that easy for one person to make sweeping federal changes, why doesn't some Democrat legalize all drugs?  Or make abortion legal across all 50 states?  If Republicans can issue blanket bans at the orders of one fucked up old fossil, we should've seen a LOT more progress by now from the "opposition".  It's clear these sneaky bill addendums are reserved for taking the country backward & penalizing hardworking, law-abiding Americans.  

Here's a rundown of the effects this idiotic ban will have:

The proposal would redefine hemp under federal law, banning Delta-8, THCA flower, THC-P, and other intoxicating hemp products that have filled shelves since the 2018 Farm Bill. But it doesn't stop there: the bill will also effectively outlaw non-prescription CBD products by limiting the entire package/container to no more than 0.04% THC--an unattainable number. That means your child with Dravet Syndrome who has 30 seizures a day & relies on affordable OTC cannabidiol is now shit out of luck. Well, unless you can afford the up to $83,193 price tag for a year of Epidiolex, the Rx version of CBD. It's unknown how this bill will affect the sale of cannabis (marijuana) seeds, which are considered hemp products under the 2018 Farm Bill, or how the entire thing will be applied in states that've legalized recreational or medicinal cannabis.

Oh please, this whore for the poison-shilling industries never had a "soul".

Methinks this is the end goal:  to outlaw actually-effective supplements and force Americans to pay 3 times for their medicine--once to the private insurer, once to the prescriber and once again at the pharmacy.  It's BEEN the motivation behind the relentless drive to ban kratom, which could easily happen at this point with the way things are going. Whether you use hemp/CBD products or not, you should be fighting mad that one or two corporate-funded politicians can render a whole industry dead with the stroke of a pen. Because it could happen to YOUR job, industry or medicine next. 

I've written before about shady attempts by the FDA to ban supplements that've never killed a single soul, rendering them available by Rx only.  Many such bans passed as part of the "COVID Cares Act" under Biden so this is by no means a partisan issue.  Indeed, Obama twisted China's arm to ban 116 research chemicals with one bill in 2016, effectively kicking off the fentanyl epidemic when those RC labs switched to making fentanyl analogues instead of "bath salts" or "Spice".  Prior to this, even the DISCUSSION of opioid research chemicals was forbidden in online RC forums.  No, this isn't a partisan issue: It's an issue of allowing representatives with ulterior motives to quietly pass earth-shattering laws that should absolutely be up for popular vote, if not Congressional vote. 

These bans are not intended to protect the public but to eliminate competition & protect the profits of the pharmaceutical, private health insurance, alcohol, tobacco & drug testing industries.  You can hawk ineffective or even dangerous supplements all day, but as soon as it becomes clear that a supplement is taking $$$ out of these industries' greedy mouths because it actually works, it's a wrap.  We saw 80+ years of this with cannabis, they've tried it with kratom which competes with opioids, sleep aids, antidepressants & other patented drugs & they tried it previously with CBD when Epidiolex was hitting the market. Enough is enough.  We're essentially allowing Big Pharma to write our drug laws--laws responsible for an untold amount of death & suffering due to adulteration of the illicit drug supply & zero-tolerance drug education that doesn't work.

See?  Even Google AI admits it was profit-driven!

All these crooked bougie motherfuckers have been waving a potential federal rescheduling or decriminalization of THC/cannabis in front of our faces for DECADES (since the Carter administration!) without a single step made toward that end, yet one bill we didn't even get to vote on can wipe out the entire legal hemp industry overnight?  Something's very wrong with that picture.  And again, it's not a Republican/Democrat thing other than the fact that both sides are guilty of using these backdoor bans to their advantage & our detriment.  If it's this easy to make sweeping changes to American industry & drug law without even alerting the public first, we may as well have never left the monarchy because we're being ruled by an all-powerful untouchable class that acts as judge, jury & executioner.  Our input not needed.

And y'all wonder why I say voting in its current form is useless.  We've got a "representative" government that does NOT represent us, any of us.  Black, white, old, young, middle class, poor, healthy, disabled or otherwise.  Here's hoping all you conservatives in the hemp industries of Kentucky, Texas, rural Oregon, Florida & Utah realize you voted for a crooked con artist who doesn't give one shit about you.  Not one.  With his billionaire cronies, Trump has brought about more financial stress to Americans via federal firings, layoffs, destruction of social welfare programs/SSI & now, the wiping out of an entire legal industry than any administration in recent memory.  They don't want us on welfare, but they're also destroying the few decent jobs we have available & doing fuckall to ensure that employers are required to pay workers a living wage.  You're gonna have to pick one because people have to eat.  In the words of Bob Marley, "A hungry man is an angry man".  And that's where I'll sign off.

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