By Melissa Vonder Haar

Earlier this fall, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine held up a bag of high-dose, synthetically produced Delta-8 gummies—made to look like a popular children’s candy—during a press conference announcing his executive order to ban all intoxicating hemp products in the state. His argument mirrors that of many in Congress currently: banning hemp will keep these high-dose, synthetic, child-targeted products out of the hands of minors.

The irony is that by banning all intoxicating hemp products—and most non-intoxicating CBD products, which the current Senate Spending Bill would also do—Congressional leadership is far more likely to increase the presence of those very copycat, high-dose, marketed-to-children products it hopes to eliminate.

How?

Yes, Congress may well “close” the loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that allowed a $28-billion hemp THC market to bloom—but there is zero plan for enforcement. That means the responsible players—the low-dose beverages, functional gummies, and mainstream retailers like Target, Total Wine, and some convenience stores—will stop selling. Meanwhile, the bad actors already flouting copyright laws and basic decency will keep right on going. They’ll become the only option for millions of Americans who’ve discovered they like THC but live in states where marijuana isn’t legally accessible.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. I’ve covered tobacco and nicotine for more than a decade, and we’ve seen this movie before.

Take menthol. California became the second state to ban menthol cigarettes in late 2022. One year after the ban, research firm WSPM Group analyzed 15,000 discarded cigarette packs found in trash cans across major metro areas. Before the ban, 24.5% of cigarettes sold in California were menthol. A year later, 21% of the discarded packs were still menthol—and many were from Mexico, meaning they weren’t FDA-approved and were linked to brands trafficked by Mexican cartels.

In short: the ban barely reduced menthol use, cost responsible retailers (and the state) millions in lost revenue, and almost certainly made public health worse. Do we really think cartels importing illegal menthol cigarettes into California are checking IDs?

“As a responsible small business owner, I’ve made investments in age-gating and training for my staff—we want to be an ally in protecting our consumers and following the law,” said Chris Bambury, fourth-generation retailer and president of Bonneau Markets of Northern California, a small convenience and fuel chain. “Cigarettes remain a top driver of sales. When the state banned menthols, we stopped carrying them—but less responsible competitors in other channels kept selling. We didn’t just lose those menthol sales; we lost the revenue from the fuel fill-up, the coffee, the pack beverages they’d pick up with the menthols. That’s a hard hit for a small operator.”

And that’s just California. The convenience industry has also lived through a national ban—on flavored vapor. In early 2020, the FDA prohibited cartridge-based flavored e-cigarettes unless approved (only menthol products have been). That policy now extends to all flavored vapor systems—synthetic, disposable, and open.

Five years later, flavored vapor still represents roughly 70% of U.S. sales.

The FDA has an entire center dedicated to enforcing tobacco laws and still plays whack-a-mole with illegal flavored products flooding in from China.

There is no such center—nor budget—for hemp enforcement.

If Congress pushes this ban through, and if our industry doesn’t act before it takes effect in a year, we’re looking at a catastrophic outcome—not just for convenience retail or hemp, but for public health.

My question for those in government is simple: How do you plan to enforce this? Closing the loophole seven years later won’t erase a $28-billion industry. It will just hand it over to the worst actors.

Let’s work together to prevent that and develop responsible, enforceable regulations that weed out the bad actors instead of rewarding them.

Editor’s Note: Melissa Vonder Haar is a long-time contributor to NACS Media, a nationally recognized expert on THC products and the backbar, and a member of the supplier community who serves on the NACS Supplier Board. While this article reflects her opinions, NACS is fully engaged in the fight to preserve the ability of c-stores to sell low-dosage intoxicating hemp beverages. To learn more, email Melissa Vonder Haar at melissa@iseetradeworks.com or find resources on the NACS Government Relations page.