Counterpoint: Congress must close dangerous hemp loophole

In 2022, five 14-year-old girls in Des Moines, Iowa, ended up dizzy, vomiting and with racing hearts after buying and consuming colorful delta-8 gummies branded Death by Gummy Bears, made by a Minnesota company called Northland Vapor. The girls later told police they didn’t know what they were. One girl was paranoid and kept repeating that she didn’t want to die. Two were later treated in the emergency room. The FDA issued a warning letter to Northland Vapor after the Iowa incident and separately after a 23-year-old man died from consuming the same product. Minnesota’s own Board of Pharmacy sued the company, saying its gummies violated state THC limits. Litigation is ongoing. This entire ordeal occurred because of a federal loophole nobody in Congress intended to create. Recently, Congress voted to keep that loophole open for at least one more month. The root of the issue dates back to the 2018 Farm Bill, which defined legal hemp using a narrow measure of delta-9 THC content.

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