A panel of state policymakers at a hearing at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex on Thursday appeared in near-unanimous agreement on the need for statewide regulation of the intoxicating hemp industry.
A patchwork of local and state regulations, with policies that vary from agency to agency, has popped up nationwide, including in Pennsylvania, since hemp was legalized federally in 2018. And for months, state lawmakers have been considering further restrictions.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told legislators that he and other prosecutors are waiting for their leadership on restricting hemp products, like beverages, gummies and other edibles, that are sold through what he characterized as a legal loophole.
“My testimony is not about the legalization of marijuana. It’s not about taking away people’s livelihood and farmers and folks that are working in this industry,” Steele said at the public hearing hosted by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. “It’s about community safety and establishing the guardrails through legislation that oversee that safety.”
Under the 2018 federal Farm Bill, hemp products are legally permitted if they contain less than 0.3% THC in dry weight when harvested. (THC is the psychoactive compound in cannabis.) If the plant tests over the 0.3% THC limit, then it’s considered marijuana. Some critics say that the farm bill created a loophole for hemp producers to create products with higher THC contents that intoxicate users.
Steele, echoing the concerns of many law enforcement officials nationwide, said some retailers are designing the products to appeal to children.
Jake Sitler, who owns Lancaster-based Endo, which sells hemp-derived THC beverages, has lobbied for regulations of hemp in Pennsylvania for eight years. Last year, he founded the Pennsylvania Hemp & Cannabis Guild over concerns that the hemp industry was being excluded from regulatory talks.
At the hearing, Sitler urged lawmakers to adopt product testing and age-limiting requirements for buying intoxicating hemp products. Those types of rules, he said, would eliminate many of the bad actors who have flooded the market with misleading products or child-focused marketing.
But an outright ban on intoxicating hemp products would be a step backward, Sitler said, that could encourage people in Pennsylvania to turn to purchasing marijuana products — which are banned recreationally, but permitted for medical purposes, in the state. He also spoke about impending changes at the federal level included in the November 2025 spending bill that ended the record-breaking government shutdown. The provision, set to take effect in November 2026, would effectively prohibit many intoxicating hemp products, and Sitler said that could force many hemp farmers out of business.
“It’s not about avoiding regulatory, but it’s about avoiding regulatory whiplash, protecting these farmers and making sure the rules we build actually last,” Sitler said. He pressed lawmakers to urge Congress to extend the one-year deadline that would ban most intoxicating hemp.
Sitler also urged lawmakers to consider whether additional regulations would potentially favor small businesses or large-scale cannabis corporations, which he has alleged are looking to push family-owned businesses from the market.
Policy patchwork
Chris Lindsey, vice president of policy and state advocacy at the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp, spoke critically about the hemp market and described himself as a “marijuana guy.” He urged lawmakers to “come up with a solution” that clearly gives law enforcement teeth when dealing with intoxicating hemp products.
“You can actually have products that are many, many times more potent than you would get even in a full adult-use regulated marijuana program,” Lindsey said. He also criticized the federal definitions in the 2018 Farm Bill separating hemp from marijuana that he said created the loophole.
For prosecutors, one the biggest issues is the lack of clarity, according to Berks County District Attorney John Adams. He told lawmakers that there have been several cases where he and his office chose not to prosecute someone suspected of selling illicit hemp products because of Pennsylvania’s unclear regulations.
“We need something to give us the means for law enforcement to be able to act, to control these smoke shops, convenience stores that are selling these products,” Adams said.
House Agriculture & Rural Affairs Chair Eddie Pashinski, D-Luzerne, said the hearing was only the first step to crafting any legislation and that he had plans to meet with the testifiers privately at the Capitol in the coming weeks.
Before the hearing, Meredith Buettner Schneider, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, told WITF that her organization, which represents medical marijuana permit holders and industry partners, has backed a proposal in the General Assembly to create an independent regulatory commission that would oversee all consumable cannabis products statewide.
Schneider said a commission is the only way businesses can avoid “finger-pointing between agencies” when deciding who is in charge of regulation.
“Pennslvanians deserve access to safe, regulated products,” Scheider said. “If we’re going to add additional intoxicating products into the market, we think it’s important that there’s one regulatory body overseeing all those products and that there are consistent regulations.”