By Ruth Hill R.N.
In the aftermath of the 2018 Farm Bill, which federally legalized hemp, manufacturers exploited the law, to produce and market intoxicating hemp products without the same safeguards in place as legal marijuana. Federal legislation allowed states to enact more stringent regulations surrounding their hemp programs. Some products ended up selling to unlicensed retail establishments, including smoke and vape shops, gas stations and convenience stores. Some hemp manufacturers marketed products to children with graphics and labeling that mimicked brands of popular candies and snacks.
California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 8, on September 9, 2025, which bans the sale of inhalable hemp-derived cannabinoids (e.g. delta-8, delta-10) in smoke shops, gas stations, and other retail settings, consolidating those products under the regulated cannabis framework. The legislation, heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, also prohibits all synthetic Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products and integrates hemp into the state’s cannabis framework. The provisions in the bill include an effective date of Jan. 1, 2028.
The bill’s passage mimics executive action by Newsom in September 2024, when he issued emergency regulations to require that hemp food, beverage and dietary products intended for human consumption have no detectable THC or other intoxicating cannabinoids per serving, created a minimum age to purchase hemp products to 21, and limited the number of servings of hemp products to five per package.
After the California Office of Administrative Law approved the governor’s emergency regulations, they were adopted by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), making hemp-derived THC products illegal. The CDPH issued a proposal on June 13, 2024, to permanently ban hemp-derived intoxicating cannabinoid products, including those with trace amounts of THC. The CDPH estimates that the proposal would cause 115 businesses to close and 18,478 jobs to be lost in five years after implementation, with $3.14 billion in lost revenue.
Under the CDPH’s current regulations, which Gov. Gavin Newsom issued, industrial hemp food, beverages and dietary supplements intended for human consumption must have no detectable THC or any “comparable cannabinoid” per serving, have a minimum purchase age of 21 and have no more than five servings per package.
The regulations don’t impact licensed cannabis dispensary sales, which include intoxicating compounds derived from the same plant species; however, licensed cannabis businesses operate under a framework that requires laboratory testing with certificates of analysis on product labels to help ensure consumer safety from harmful contaminants.
While the emergency regulations are set to expire on Sept. 23, 2025, the CDPH’s latest proposal to permanently ban intoxicating hemp products with detectable amounts of THC is now under a 45-day rulemaking period, after which the department will consider all public comments, objections and recommendations. Assembly Bill 8 if signed by Governor Newsom, will make these emergency regulations mute.
While children under 21 with certain health conditions would still have access to California’s medical cannabis program, they would no longer have access to hemp Cannabidiol (CBD) products. The CDPH projects that only a “small number” of nonintoxicating CBD products would likely remain outside of the licensed cannabis market under the department’s proposal.
To comply with the proposed regulations (and the current emergency regulations), hemp product manufacturers would need to use a purified CBD isolate that eliminates traces of total THC. “CBD isolate and other cannabinoid isolates that contain no detectable total THC are costly,” according to the CDPH’s notice. Many products previously available that were marketed as ‘CBD’ had very low levels of total THC but would still have been noncompliant with the proposed regulations due to trace amounts of total THC that would still be detectable at some level.”
The department also anticipates that many of California’s roughly 70,000 residents who regularly consume hemp products will likely substitute their in-state purchases with mail orders from out of state. This will impact California businesses’ ability to compete with other states.
This permanent ban eventually moves the hemp business into the regulated dispensaries where it belongs. Now the debates concerning the effectiveness of manufacturing isolate CBD begins.
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