On December 11, 2026, the federal definition of hemp changes. Unless Congress acts before that date, the personal use CBD flower and prerolls and we grow in Cabot stop being “hemp” in the eyes of federal law — and we stop shipping them out of state.
We want to explain this plainly, because most of the coverage you’ll find is about THC gummies and seltzers, and almost none of it is about a small farm selling non-intoxicating CBD flower. The two are being treated the same way, and that is the whole problem.
What actually changed
In November 2025, Congress attached Section 781 to the appropriations act that reopened the government (H.R. 5371). That section rewrote the definition of “hemp” in the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 — the same definition the Controlled Substances Act points to when it carves hemp out of Schedule I.
The new definition applies two separate tests. A product has to pass both.
- Total THC, 0.3% by dry weight. The old rule measured delta-9 THC only. The new one measures total THC, which includes THCA. This is the change everyone expected, and it is aimed squarely at high-THCA flower sold as “hemp.”
- 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. This is the one almost nobody saw coming. A finished hemp product is excluded from the definition of hemp if it holds more than 0.4 mg of total THC in its innermost retail package — regardless of how big that package is, and regardless of whether it passes the first test. Unfinished bulk hemp flower acting as ingredients is an agricultural commodity similarly to raw tobacco leaves.
The definition also excludes cannabinoids that the cannabis plant cannot naturally produce, and cannabinoids that could be produced by the plant but were synthesized or manufactured outside of it. That part took effect earlier, on November 12, 2026. Anything falling outside the new definition reverts to Schedule I.
Why this catches flower that isn’t intoxicating
Here is the part that matters for us, and it is worth walking through with real numbers off our own certificates of analysis.
Our Suzy’s Gift flower tests at 0.263% total THC. That comfortably passes the first test — it is under the 0.3% ceiling, and it was under the old delta-9 ceiling too. It has always been compliant hemp, and it remains compliant hemp by concentration.
But 0.263% works out to 2.63 milligrams of total THC in every gram. Against a 0.4 mg per-container cap, that means a legal container could hold about fifteen hundredths of a gram — roughly a sixth of a gram of flower. Our Tangie, at 0.21% total THC, gets you to about two tenths of a gram.
| Package | Total THC | Against the 0.4 mg cap |
|---|---|---|
| 1.25 g King Cone preroll | 3.3 mg | 8× over |
| 3.5 g (eighth) | 9.2 mg | 23× over |
| 7 g (quarter) | 18.4 mg | 46× over |
| 28 g (ounce) | 73.6 mg | 184× over |
There is no package size of natural non-GMO smokable CBD flower that fits under a 0.4 mg cap. Not ours, and not anyone’s. A cap written in milligrams-per-container works fine for a beverage or a gummy, where the cannabinoid is dosed into the product. Applied to a plant that makes its own cannabinoids, it is not a limit — it is a prohibition.
One honest uncertainty
We will not tell you this is settled, because it isn’t. The per-container cap is written to apply to finished hemp-derived cannabinoid products, and the statute does not clearly define whether raw, unprocessed flower in a retail bag is such a product or is simply the agricultural commodity itself. Lawyers writing about the provision have mostly discussed edibles, beverages and tinctures, and have not resolved how flower is treated. Congress did not define the key terms.
So there is a reading in which our flower survives on the strength of its 0.263% concentration alone. We are not going to bet on it. The consequence of being wrong is a Schedule I controlled substance moving through the mail, and that is not a risk any small farm should take on an untested interpretation. We would rather sell through, stop cleanly, and be able to say exactly what we did.
“Unless Congress acts”
The December 11 date is itself the product of a reprieve. The restrictions were originally set to bite on November 12, 2026. In August and September of 2026 the Senate and then the House voted to push most of them back by about thirty days, and the President signed that delay into law on September 2. It bought the industry four weeks.
Several bills would go further — delaying the change to 2028, repealing Section 781 outright and restoring the 2018 definition, replacing the ban with an actual regulatory framework, or carving out beverages. As of this writing none of them has moved out of committee, neither chamber’s Farm Bill work addresses the provision, and the White House has signaled that the thirty-day delay was the last extension it supports. Government funding also runs out on December 11, which means the deadline lands on one of the busiest legislative days of the year.
Could that change? Yes. Riders have appeared in appropriations bills with less notice than this. We simply have no basis to plan around it, and neither should you.
What this means for your order
- We ship out of state through December 10, 2026. Orders are filled in the order received while stock lasts.
- On December 11 we stop shipping personal use hemp flower products across state lines. That covers hand trimmed flower, prerolls.
- Bulk hemp flower is an agricultural commodity like raw tobacco leaves. It is not a finished product and may not be subject to 0.4 mg THC packaging limits when sold as ingredients for making processed products.
- Our flower is what it has always been. Nothing about the product changed. The definition did.
- Check your own state. Several states moved ahead of the federal deadline with their own restrictions, and a few of those are stricter. Federal law is the floor, not the ceiling.
If you have a cultivar you come back for, this is the window. We have been growing on this hillside in Cabot since 2016, and we would rather it go to the people who have been buying it than sit in the barn.
This post describes our reading of a federal statute and our own business decision. It is not legal advice, and we are not lawyers. If you sell hemp products, talk to counsel about your own situation — the terms Congress used are undefined and reasonable people are reading them differently.