Rhode Island hemp businesses facing a new federal crackdown on high-potency THC products won't have to toss their inventory in the dumpster come December. Instead, the state's Cannabis Control Commission is letting them quarantine anything that exceeds the incoming federal cap of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, locking it away rather than destroying it outright, so long as it never reaches a customer's hands.
The option, issued Oct. 8 and emailed to all 201 of the state's licensed hemp businesses the following day, gives retailers, growers and processors breathing room as the clock runs down on a sweeping federal restriction, according to Rhode Island Current. Products that blow past the new threshold are set to become illegal nationwide on Dec. 11, and once that date hits, quarantined goods cannot be processed, moved, distributed or sold unless the federal government or the commission explicitly says otherwise.
Hemp licensees have their own homework before then. Businesses must submit an inventory report to the commission by Dec. 4, and after the ban kicks in, they are barred from adding to or removing anything from their quarantined stock. They can, however, request to destroy those products whenever they choose, and regulators retain the right to conduct inspections and inventory audits at any time, per the outlet's reporting.
Growers Say the Guidance Still Leaves Them Guessing
Not everyone in the industry is satisfied that the quarantine option solves their problem. Mike Simpson, co-founder of Lovewell Farms — described as the state's only outdoor hemp farm — said the updated guidance ultimately does little to clarify what growers like him are supposed to do with their inventory, the station's report notes.
Simpson and Adam Oliveri, CEO of Massachusetts-based beverage distributor and wholesaler Craft Collective Homegrown, have both questioned whether businesses would need separate commission approval to resume testing, processing and selling quarantined products if federal law shifts again after Dec. 11. Simpson has also asked whether the commission itself will need to update Rhode Island's hemp regulations to match the new federal definition — a process that, per the same account, would require a public comment period.
Craft Collective Homegrown pressed the commission in an Oct. 7 letter to let businesses hold on to high-potency THC products for up to six months, provided the inventory was tracked and inspected and nothing was sold. Oliveri called the commission's eventual guidance a “meaningful step forward” in preserving Rhode Island's budding hemp industry, the outlet reported.
A $2.85 Million Market Built Largely on Seltzers
The stakes for Rhode Island's hemp sector are not small. The industry generated $2.85 million in sales in 2025, and THC-infused drinks and seltzers made up roughly 83% of that total, according to the same source. Those figures were separately confirmed by trade outlet MMJDaily, which likewise reported that the Dec. 11 federal rule will bar sales of hemp-derived cannabinoid products exceeding the 0.4-milligram-per-container limit.
The timeline itself has already shifted once. Rhode Island Current reported that the new federal hemp definition was originally set to take effect Nov. 12, but Congress pushed the effective date back one month as part of a short-term government funding bill signed in September. A congressional research summary from congress.gov, however, still lists the change to the definition as scheduled for Nov. 12 — a discrepancy the available sources do not resolve.
Separately, trade publication The Marijuana Herald reported that Rhode Island had directed licensed hemp businesses to remove products exceeding the 0.4-milligram threshold from licensed facilities before Dec. 11, and that the same products cannot be transferred into the state's regulated marijuana market or sold as marijuana products.
Commission Points to Avoiding Forced Destruction
For regulators, the quarantine option appears designed to buy time rather than settle the underlying uncertainty. Rhode Island Current's reporting is the dossier's sole source naming a Cannabis Control Commission spokesperson on the record about the rationale behind the shift in guidance, so that framing is presented here with that single attribution.
The hemp industry's unease has been building for weeks. Rhode Island hemp growers and distributors had objected to the commission's earlier September guidance, arguing it would force the destruction of products that complied with state regulations adopted in 2024. Workers from Lovewell Farms raised similar concerns with regulators, including at a Sept. 18 commission meeting, before the quarantine option emerged.
Mike Simpson, meanwhile, has kept pushing his product into public view even as the regulatory picture clouds. He displayed Lovewell Farms' THC-infused sparkling lemonade at the Broadway Street Fair in Newport on Oct. 10 — a beverage the farm had launched in early September, just three months before the federal government is set to prohibit such products, Rhode Island Current reported.
For now, the bottom line for the state's hemp businesses is straightforward even if the path forward isn't: they can hang on to their intoxicating inventory once the federal limit takes hold, but they cannot sell it unless Congress changes course.
