Ted Cruz Defended Hemp THC in a Shutdown Floor Fight

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was the only Republican besides Kentucky’s Rand Paul to vote against killing a hemp-THC rescue amendment, 76-24, on November 10, 2025. The amendment tried to strip Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 0.4 milligrams cap from the funding package that ended a 43-day government shutdown.

Cruz cast that vote as a states’ rights fight, not a conversion to federal cannabis legalization. The cap he opposed is still the law. Congress later slid its start date to December 11, 2026.

Cruz Voted With Paul on States’ Rights

The roll call was the first standalone Senate vote on cannabis policy in years, and it sat inside a must-pass bill to reopen the government. House Speaker Mike Johnson had already needled Paul for “gumming up the works” over “little parochial priorities.” Almost the entire GOP conference went with McConnell. Cruz did not.

The 76-24 motion to table the amendment left Paul with 22 Democrats and Cruz. Democrats split down the middle. Oregon’s Ron Wyden, who had helped legalize hemp in 2018, voted with Paul. Plenty of senators who campaign as reform votes did not.

I have long believed that the regulation of hemp and marijuana products should rest with each individual state. Reasonable minds can disagree, and a blanket federal prohibition disempowers the voters in each of the fifty States.

Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas, November 11, 2025

He added that a single federal standard would “undoubtedly create unintended consequences that harm consumers,” and that children should be protected by a 21-and-over purchase rule, a ban on synthetics, and a ban on “dangerous foreign imports marketed to kids.” That, he said, is the path Gov. Greg Abbott took in Texas after vetoing an outright hemp ban and pushing age gates and testing instead.

Cruz has said for years that Colorado can choose one cannabis policy and Texas another. He has also opposed federal marijuana rescheduling, citing crash risk. The November vote fits that older line more than any new romance with THC seltzers. Texas is a major hemp state. Beau Whitney, chief economist for the National Industrial Hemp Council, put the local hit at roughly 6,350 businesses and more than 40,000 workers, and called the cap “an extinction-level event.”

Months later Cruz told a hemp industry call that the floor fight had been “a personal battle between Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul,” and that McConnell “leaned in very, very hard” on Republican colleagues. “I thought Rand made more sense than Mitch did on this,” Cruz said. “I didn’t want to do damage to farmers, to small businesses across the country.”

A Farm Bill Loophole McConnell Spent 2025 Closing

McConnell was the Senate’s chief author of hemp’s return as a crop. The 2018 farm bill hemp definition treated the plant as hemp if it held less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight, and it swept in derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, and salts under that same test. Processors learned they could stay under 0.3 percent delta-9 and still sell delta-8, THCA flower, gummies, vapes, and drinks that behave like marijuana.

That was not the textile-and-grain industry McConnell said he had in mind. In a July 2025 hearing he said his 2018 bill “sought to create an agricultural hemp industry, not open the door to the sale of unregulated, intoxicating, lab-made, hemp-derived substances with no safety framework.” On the floor in November he went further, saying companies had taken legal amounts of THC, turned them into intoxicating goods, and marketed them to children “in candy-like packaging” at gas stations and convenience stores.

The language I helped secure in the Agriculture Appropriations bill addresses a serious concern regarding the manufacturing and selling of unregulated, intoxicating THC products nationwide. It will keep these dangerous products out of the hands of children, while preserving the hemp industry for farmers.

Mitch McConnell, U.S. senator from Kentucky, Senate floor, November 10, 2025

He promised industrial hemp and CBD would remain legal for seed, fiber, grain oil, and drug trials. Industry lawyers say the milligram math does not spare most CBD on shelves. In September 2025, 39 attorneys general asked Congress to tighten the federal hemp definition so unregulated THC products would leave the gray market. McConnell answered that plea inside a shutdown deal, with a one-year fuse, rather than inside a farm bill.

What a 0.4 Milligram Cap Does to Hemp Drinks

The new test is not 0.3 percent of a dry plant. It is 0.4 milligrams combined total per container of tetrahydrocannabinols, including THCA, plus a ban on cannabinoids that the cannabis plant cannot make naturally or that were synthesized outside the plant. A typical hemp seltzer carries 2 to 10 milligrams of THC per can, which is 5 to 25 times the new ceiling. Kentucky’s own 5 milligram drink limit is more than 12 times the federal cap.

THE 0.4 MILLIGRAM MATH

The U.S. Hemp Roundtable says 95% of the hemp cannabinoid market fails that test, including “the large majority of non-intoxicating CBD products,” and puts the industry at $28 billion and about 300,000 jobs. Paul told colleagues the appropriations language “wipes out nearly 100% of legal hemp products overnight,” kills jobs, and overrides 23 state laws that already police hemp. The U.S. Hemp Association wanted testing and packaging rules, not a milligram floor that treats a 10 milligram seltzer like a crime.

Beer and Spirits Groups Pressed for a Full Ban

The drinks were never a side skirmish for beer and spirits. Hemp seltzers sit in the same coolers, chase the same younger buyers, and do not carry alcohol excise tax. In a November 4, 2025, letter, the Beer Institute, the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., and the Wine Institute urged Congress to take hemp-derived THC products out of the marketplace, arguing the 2018 statute was written for industrial hemp, not a new intoxicating category. Lobbying filings in that period showed Anheuser-Busch, Molson Coors, and Bacardi among the firms that increased hemp-related work in Washington.

McConnell and Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, then chair of the House Freedom Caucus, already wanted the loophole closed. The alcohol letter gave them cover to park the rewrite in a shutdown bill after Paul had knocked similar language out of a regular agriculture spending measure. The groups offered to talk about future rules, after a ban first.

By July 2026 that posture had slipped. WSWA, an alcohol wholesale trade association, endorsed a House bill from Reps. Andy Barr of Kentucky and Angie Craig of Minnesota that would keep many hemp drinks legal for adults 21 and over, while leaving the tax rate open for more talks. Barr, who also co-chairs the Congressional Bourbon Caucus, has said no industry should hold “a unique, special competitive advantage based on the law,” and that Kentucky can back hemp and bourbon at once. The shutdown rider they helped lock in had become a thing to renegotiate, once the drinks were on a kill clock.

Opposite Hemp Bets Inside the Kentucky Delegation

Kentucky grew the hemp fight in both directions. McConnell wanted the 2018 crop story back under farm and fiber. Paul wanted the state’s 5 milligram drinks and the farmers who planted for that market. “Kentucky jobs are not collateral. Our farmers are not bargaining chips,” Paul said after the table vote. He later called the milligram rule “the most thoughtless, ignorant proposal to an industry that I’ve seen in a long, long time.”

Just to be clear: I am not delaying this bill. The timing is already fixed under Senate procedure. But there is extraneous language in this package that has nothing to do with reopening the government and would harm Kentucky’s hemp farmers and small businesses. Standing up for…

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) November 10, 2025

Paul’s night-of warning was that the cap would flatten shops that had already written state rules. Cruz’s Texas pitch was the same shape: let a state set 21-and-up sales and testing, and do not use a shutdown bill to erase that choice.

STATE RULES THE FEDERAL CAP WOULD OVERRIDE

• Kentucky drinks: Paul cited a 5 milligram hemp beverage that would fail the 0.4 milligram federal ceiling.
• Twenty-three state laws: Paul said the rider would override hemp rules already on the books the night of the vote.
• Texas age gate: Cruz pointed to Abbott’s veto of a full ban and a 21-and-over model with product testing.

McConnell still described the language as a way to save “the hemp industry for farmers.” The farmers Paul was hearing from were selling into drinks, gummies, and extracts, not only into grain and fiber. That is the 2018 bill coming due in the state that wrote it.

A December 11 Date on the Same Milligram Cap

President Donald Trump signed the shutdown package, and the hemp rewrite was set to take effect 365 days later, on November 13, 2026. Rescue bills followed. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina filed a House bill to repeal the redefinition. Paul promised a state-control bill. Barr’s later draft would lift the dry-weight THC ceiling as high as 1 percent for adults 21 and over, a different yardstick from milligrams in a can. Cruz told hemp growers in 2026 that little would move while McConnell was “actively leaning on people not to do anything,” and that a fix might wait until McConnell leaves at the end of the year.

The calendar moved anyway, in short hops. On August 8, 2026, the Senate tabled an attempt by Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina to keep the original ban date, 61-32, then passed a stopgap 90-6. Cruz said the delay “gives Congress and the Administration time to negotiate a more substantial bill.” On September 1, 2026, the House passed its own short-term funding bill that pushes the hemp restrictions to December 11, 2026. U.S. Hemp Roundtable counsel Jonathan Miller called that vote a “lifeline of a 30-day extension.” Joe Gerrity, chief executive of drink maker Crescent Canna, said his company had already laid off half its staff, and treated the extra month as Congress giving itself more time to repair a problem it had created.

HOW THE HEMP RULE GOT REWRITTEN

1. December 2018: The farm bill legalizes hemp under 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight, including extracts and isomers.
2. July 2025: McConnell tells a hearing that 2018 was meant for farm hemp, not lab-made intoxicating goods.
3. November 10, 2025: The Senate tables Paul’s strike 76-24, with Cruz the only other Republican in the minority.
4. November 13, 2026: Original effective date, 365 days after Trump signed the shutdown package.
5. August 8, 2026: The Senate keeps delay language in a stopgap, 61-32, then passes the bill 90-6.
6. September 1, 2026: The House votes to push the restrictions to December 11, 2026.

In August 2026, Cruz backed that short delay so Congress and the White House could negotiate a fuller bill. McConnell remains in office through the end of the year. The number on the books is still 0.4 milligrams per container, now dated December 11, 2026.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on federal hemp and cannabis legislation and is for information only. It is not legal advice, medical advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or consume hemp, CBD, or THC products. Readers should consult a licensed attorney in their state and a qualified clinician before making decisions about hemp products, compliance, or use. Vote counts, milligram limits, and effective dates reflect the public record cited here and can change if Congress or the White House acts again.