Q&A on the DEA IFR for Hemp - Q&A #11 - What is the practical risk that the DEA will actually arrest processors and brokers with hot hemp extracts?

On August 21, 2020, the Drug Enforcement Agency promulgated a new Interim Final Rule (IFR) that threatens the burgeoning hemp industry in the United States. I previously published an article about the IFR here, and you can read the full IFR here. To help breakdown some of the more pressing issues in the IFR, I published a fifteen part Q&A you can read here. Question #11 is below.

11. What is the practical risk that the DEA will actually arrest processors and brokers with hot hemp extracts?

The text of the IFR specifically states that “[t]his interim final rule merely conforms the DEA’s regulations to the statutory amendments to the [federal Controlled Substances Act] that have already taken effect, and it does not add additional requirements to the regulations.” Further, subsequent news reports of communications from DEA officials suggest that the DEA does not consider hemp extracts to be an enforcement priority. 

However, the IFR clearly articulates a position that hot hemp extracts are illegal, and therefore manufacturing hot hemp extracts is illegal. What was previously a gray area that received little or no law enforcement attention under the Farm Bill is now a black and white problem under the IFR. Veterans of the hemp industry remember previous actions by the DEA to wage the War on Drugs against the hemp industry and have been rightly conditioned to not trust the DEA. Only time will tell whether the DEA and its local law enforcement partners use the IFR to arrest hemp processors and brokers and/or seize their assets.