🎣 “That’s some catch, that Catch-22.”

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DEA has sent orders to show cause to at least some medical cannabis businesses in California, Delaware, Illinois, North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., on top of the Minnesota rejection, according to sources who spoke with Marijuana Moment. The Illinois and Missouri hemp laws start today, as does the federal change for synthetic cannabinoids, while the federal 0.4 milligram cap still waits for December 11th. House and Senate Republicans kept their leaders, Texas’s Lieutenant Governor-elect says she has reserved the first 30 bill numbers, and Massachusetts voters kept legal cannabis with 76 percent of the vote. Delaware beverage retailers are three weeks into new rules, and a fake Tennessee email now has a state investigation attached.

📜 DEA widens the net
📅 Four hemp dates
🏛️ Same leaders, same Congress
🗳️ Thirty bill numbers

Sources told Marijuana Moment that DEA has sent orders to show cause to at least some medical cannabis businesses in California, Delaware, Illinois, North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., after the Minnesota rejection we ran November 3rd; the report does not say every business there was rejected and gives no response deadline. The Illinois order says the state’s dual medical and adult-use licensing “fails to provide ‘robust protections’ against diversion” and cites a veterans pathway that accepts one year of VA records in place of a doctor’s certification. The California order says the state’s patient form “is not a mandatory form,” and Marijuana Moment adds that MJBizDaily reported a Washington, D.C., order aimed at patient self-certification. All of this follows DEA’s approval of more than 900 applicants across seven states, which we reported November 2nd, and DEA guidance has medical businesses sourcing only from timely applicants or registrants by late November, a date The Marijuana Herald puts at November 29th and calls nonbinding.

The orders share a pattern. Industry sources who reviewed them say they treat non-medical sales as a break from the Controlled Substances Act’s “closed system” for medical access, so a state with one dual license, or a way to buy without a doctor’s sign-off, is where the questions land first, and that describes Illinois, California, and D.C. I would still like to see rescheduling finished, and how these states answer will shape what it means in practice. Massachusetts is weighing a similar pathway for veterans, which DEA could read the way it read Illinois’s if the House and Senate keep it in the final supplemental budget. (Marijuana Moment; The Marijuana Herald)

Missouri’s hemp law takes effect today for THCA flower, gummies, and other solid edibles with added delta-9, and anything synthetic or lab-converted, which only licensed cannabis facilities may now sell, per the Division of Cannabis Regulation. Beverages made with naturally occurring cannabinoids get until December 11th, the federal date, as long as they are not sold to anyone under 21. Illinois’s state hemp law also starts November 12th as a separate date, and federally, cannabinoids the plant can’t naturally produce fall out of the hemp definition the same day, while the federal ban, now pushed to December 11th, caps hemp products at 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. Illinois agreed not to enforce through November 19th against the Illinois Healthy Alternatives Association, the businesses in its suit, and covered members, about 250 businesses by CBS Chicago’s count, and U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold hears the request for a restraining order and preliminary injunction that day, per the Herald.

A retailer outside the lawsuit or the association should plan for today as written. The November 19th hearing is about the Illinois law; the federal cap is up to Congress. Every one of these dates, and the ones after them, is also in Deadlines, Decoded, our free monthly email. (Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation; CBS Chicago; The Marijuana Herald)

🥤 Three weeks after Delaware’s THC beverage rules took effect, the first business-impact reporting is in. Gayle Galbraith of Federal Beverage Company told CoastTV that hemp beverages were about 25 percent of her business, and said, “It’s a significant loss. I am pivoting.” Pacific Wine and Spirits cut its selection. The law, signed July 23rd, took effect October 21st and limits sales to authorized package stores, licensed dispensaries, and qualifying microbreweries, at 10 milligrams per single-serving container, with a 50 cent per container tax starting February 1, 2027, under the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner. That puts low-dose THC beverages in a licensed channel with a wholesale paper trail, and the early sales losses owners describe are part of the tradeoff that choice carries, alongside the 10 milligram cap. (CoastTV)

House Republicans elected Rep. Jim Jordan minority leader on November 10th, and Senate Republicans kept Sen. John Thune as their leader, according to Marijuana Moment, which counts 27 votes by Jordan against cannabis measures and notes that Thune joined a 2024 letter urging the Biden administration to drop its rescheduling proposal. The outlet adds that in August, Thune effectively voted to delay the scheduled federal recriminalization of hemp THC products, an issue that has divided the reform movement.

Townhall reports that Rep. Morgan Griffith wants his THC regulatory bill carried on a lame-duck reconciliation bill. “I think we need to get my THC regulatory bill passed, and if we could get that into a reconciliation bill before the 11th of December, that’d be fabulous,” he said. Sen. Rand Paul and other lawmakers want an extension so a comprehensive hemp policy can be written instead of a ban, while Townhall says Sen. Mitch McConnell leads the push for the ban in the Senate. With December 11th the only firm date, businesses hoping for an extension will get the most from conversations with their own members. (Marijuana Moment; Townhall)

🛒 Nearly 300,000 customer messages have gone to Congress, Total Wine & More says in a company release carried by Morningstar, urging regulation of THC beverages instead of a ban. The release cites a ChangeMakers Intelligence poll of 2,001 registered voters, taken October 30th to November 2nd, finding 85 percent oppose a ban, and calls for age gates, testing, potency limits, and U.S.-grown hemp with naturally occurring delta-9. It gives no question wording or weighting. Because it is the retailer’s own commissioned poll, I would ask for the question wording and read the 85 percent as what the company wants Congress to hear. (Total Wine & More release)

Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin told KSAT she is “open to” legalizing hemp, THC, and cannabis, and that “My bottom line goal is to make sure that people can get safe products.” Her team has “reserved the first 30 bill numbers,” she said, for priorities that include public schools, repealing vouchers, and regulating THC. That follows her WFAA remarks we ran November 10th, alongside the first bill filings. When she is sworn in January 19th, a week after the session starts January 12, 2027, she will be the first Democrat to preside over the Texas Senate in 26 years, KSAT notes.

“We now have a Democratic House, a Republican majority in the Senate,” she said, adding that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick “had a say in everything that happened in the Senate” and that she wants committee chairs to decide which bills come through their committees. I said in 2025 that Texas can and should regulate hemp-derived intoxicants, and with the Senate still Republican, what moves will be whatever a senator carries. (KSAT)

📧 A Halloween email to Tennessee hemp-derived cannabinoid licensees, which we ran November 2nd after the commission called it fraudulent, told them illegal products had suddenly become legal. The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission sent a warning titled “Fraudulent TABC Email” saying restrictions remain in effect, and Will Cheek III of Adams and Reese writes in JD Supra that some of the fakes carried valid license numbers and LLC names. The state’s Division of Strategic Technological Solutions is investigating, and Cheek says he has seen no information confirming a breach. A licensee who gets an email saying a rule changed should confirm it with the agency through the contact on its website before acting. (JD Supra)

Voters rejected repeal with 76 percent against, compared with the 54 percent in favor when legalization passed in 2016, GBH reports. In the survey data it cites, about 61 percent of users say they buy from a store and about a quarter still depend on the informal market, while 42 percent of 16-to-20-year-olds say they buy from a dealer, which the report calls no surprise when the legal age is 21. GBH credits a growing number of legal dispensaries and dropping prices for the shrinking legacy market.

Cannabis Control Commission figures, as GBH reports them, show about 380 operating retailers, more than $1.65 billion in adult-use sales in 2025, and a cumulative $10 billion in retail sales since stores opened in 2018, a mark reached in September. Chris Hudalla, chief scientific officer of ProVerde Laboratories, says legal flower is safer on pesticides than it was, though mold and potency labeling can still slip through. The legal market has taken most of the contest, and the quarter still buying elsewhere suggests price and access decide the rest. (GBH)

🌾 The Senate Appropriations Committee’s fiscal year 2027 agriculture and FDA explanatory statement, reported November 10th, would raise the USDA Hemp Production Program from $10 million to $12.996 million, ask FDA for a report within 270 days of enactment on obstacles to botanical-derived chronic pain therapies, and direct a hemp germplasm repository, according to The Marijuana Herald. None of it is enacted. These are committee recommendations, and nothing in them changes what happens on December 11th. (The Marijuana Herald)

🗺️ Around the map: Georgia takes medical dispensary applications November 16th to 20th, and Rhode Island’s adult-use retail application portal closes November 23rd, per the Herald’s dates roundup. The same roundup lists December 15th as the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission’s deadline to publish hemp-derived THC recommendations. California Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra named a transition team that includes Nicole Elliott, who led the Department of Cannabis Control from 2021, as agency review director, the Los Angeles Times reports, with no cannabis decision reported. (The Marijuana Herald; Los Angeles Times)

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Policy, Decoded is compiled and edited by Shawn Collins of THC Group. AI tools help with research and source checks; the judgments are his.
How we use AI: https://policy.homegrown-group.com/ai