WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has launched a pilot program that will reimburse certain Medicare and Medicaid recipients for up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products such as CBD each year. The program is intended in part to evaluate whether these products could reduce other health-related costs.

The pilot uses the definition of hemp established by the 2018 Farm Bill, which classifies hemp as any cannabis product derived from plants containing less than 0.3% delta-9 THC. That bill created the loophole that has allowed cannabis products to be sold outside state-authorized dispensaries.

In November, Congress passed a hemp ban that is set to take effect one year after passage, on November 12. If the ban goes into effect as planned, all products containing more than 0.4 mg of THC of any kind will become federally illegal.

The ban would criminalize the vast majority of hemp products, including most non-intoxicating CBD products, Jonathan Miller of US Hemp Roundtable said. Since the ban first passed, lawmakers have been trying to pass legislation to delay it or replace it with regulation, he said. Miller said he is cautiously optimistic that Congress will act to block the ban before November.

In December, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden reintroduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, which would replace the ban with regulation by the FDA to ensure hemp products are safe and free of contaminants. In January, Indiana Representative Jim Baird introduced a bill that would delay the hemp ban for two years.

"Congress isn't passing anything these days, it's so polarized and so partisan that it's hard for them to pass even the most obvious bills, and so we're kind of caught up in that." Miller said.

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social calling for Congress to update the law to ensure Americans can continue to access full-spectrum CBD products. The Trump administration has also taken steps to reschedule cannabis to acknowledge its medical potential and has faced political resistance to many of its pro-cannabis policies, including the Medicare-linked hemp pilot program.

Advocates including Drug Free America Foundation and Cannabis Industry Victims Educating litigators sued Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz over the pilot program, accusing them of establishing a plan to promote substances that may soon be considered federally illegal without going through proper administrative procedure. A court denied the lawsuit's attempt to block the program.

Inesa Ponomariovaite, owner of Nesa's Hemp, which specializes in CBDA hemp extract, met with members of Congress to advocate for laws that would keep her products legal. During the meetings, she had to explain the endocannabinoid system, a network of receptors throughout the brain and other organs that interacts with cannabinoids, to senators who had not heard of it before.

"Congress is trying to pass laws on something that they're not even fully understanding, and that's really going to affect us." Ponomariovaite said. She said that if the ban goes through she will continue to make hemp products but they will not be as effective.

"Basically have to do plant surgery. I am not a big fan of that. I want to keep all the chemistry in one bottle." she said.