Reagan’s drug policy still matters

OPINION:

I have spent much of my career on the front lines of America’s drug problem: as a federal prosecutor, as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and as governor of Arkansas.

In 2022, when Arkansas voters faced a marijuana legalization measure, I urged them to reject it. They did.

With so many issues competing for attention in the current political environment, I want to remind my fellow Republicans of something we cannot afford to forget: Drug policy still matters because lives are still at risk.

Right now, a loophole in federal law is working against everything we have stood for. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp, a crop grown for fiber, grain and seed. Its authors, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, were thinking about farmers and legitimate uses such as food, textiles and building materials.

They were not trying to open a legal market for intoxicating drugs. Yet that is what the loophole produced. Today, high-potency products such as Delta-8, Delta-10, HHC and THCP are sold at gas stations, smoke shops and online with hardly any oversight.

We should be clear about what these products are. They are not grown; they are manufactured in laboratories that chemically convert CBD isolate into intoxicating compounds. Less than 17,000 acres are devoted to cannabinoid hemp, out of roughly 876 million acres of American farmland.

Closing the loophole does not threaten real hemp farmers. Congress can protect fiber, grain and seed hemp in full while shutting down the unregulated synthetic-intoxicant industry hiding behind it.

This is, above all, a child safety problem. A Villanova University study of Pennsylvania adults found that 87% mistakenly believe intoxicating hemp products are government regulated. They are not. There are often no age checks, no dosing standards and no child-resistant packaging, and the branding frequently borrows cartoon characters and candy styles that appeal to youngsters.

Poison control centers reported more than 10,400 Delta-8 cases from 2021 to 2025, nearly half involving accidental exposure in children. Testing often finds contamination with lead, mercury, pesticides and mold.

The consequences are not theoretical. On Sept. 21, two University of Mississippi students, 18-year-old Aidan Hamilton and 20-year-old Robert Strang, were found dead in Oxford. Investigators linked the students’ purchases to a local smoke shop and a gas station. Federal prosecutors have charged two men connected to the smoke shop. Authorities say the pills contained Schedule I kratom derivatives, not hemp.

Still, the lesson is the same: When intoxicating products are allowed onto unregulated shelves next to the candy and energy drinks, young people pay the price.

Stores stock these items for a reason. Intoxicating hemp products, marijuana in everything but name, are a major profit center. Several Austin smoke shops have said smokeable hemp accounts for 43% to 50% of their sales or more. When a product line is that profitable, the incentive is to sell more, not to ask who is buying.

My years at DEA taught me that illegal drug markets never stay small or clean without government interference. Federal officials have documented that Chinese organized crime became the dominant launderer of Mexican cartel drug proceeds, then used those profits to take control of much of the illicit marijuana and hemp-derived intoxicating products trade.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has testified that proceeds from illegal intoxicating vapes flow to China, to cartel operations inside the United States and to domestic organized crime. I have long argued that we must confront the cartels as the dangerous criminal enterprises they are. They are tied to human trafficking and forced labor, not legitimate business.

Every hour that police, DEA and ATF spend chasing this unregulated gray market is an hour not spent fighting violent crime and hard narcotics. We should not hand foreign adversaries and criminal networks such a lucrative opening.

The good news is that Congress has already recognized the problem. Lawmakers voted to close the loophole in separate legislation, but H.R. 6500 — a continuing resolution to fund the government — delayed implementation once, moving the date from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11. The administration has said there will be no further extensions. That is the right position, and Congress should hold it.

Enforcement alone is never enough, and families need honest information. Yet education cannot succeed while unregulated intoxicants sit within a child’s reach. Congress must keep the door closed so prevention can work.

To my fellow Republicans: Our party has long stood for protecting families, supporting law enforcement, securing our borders and standing up to China. Closing this loophole advances all four. I urge you to reject any additional delay, any weakening of the law and any effort at repeal.

Drug policy still matters. Parents who trust us to keep their children safe are counting on us to follow through. Let us finish the job on Dec. 11.

• Asa Hutchinson is a former governor of Arkansas and a former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.