COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Hemp businesses selling intoxicating products face an uncertain future as a new federal law sets a November 2026 deadline for states to enact regulations or see the market effectively banned.

The industry now will have to lobby states to establish their own forms of regulations or find themselves closed down.

A provision included in the federal budget bill that ended the government shutdown closes a loophole that allowed sale of intoxicating hemp products without regulation. Under the new law, hemp products cannot contain more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container -- a level low enough to preclude sales of all intoxicating hemp products.

However, states can still establish their own regulatory frameworks before the deadline.

Industry advocates have pushed fo

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