By Jeff Gallagher, founder of Made By Hemp. Helping people find real hemp since 2013. Last updated: October 2026.
There is a date worth marking on your calendar: December 11, 2026. That is when most of a new federal definition of hemp, written into law as Section 781, takes effect. You have probably seen the headlines. A lot of them are built to scare you. This one is not.
We have made real CBD since 2013, out of a basement in Rockford, Michigan, back when almost nobody knew what CBD was. We have watched this industry grow up, and we have watched a loophole turn parts of it into something it was never meant to be. So we want to do what the headlines rarely do: tell you exactly what is changing, who it targets, how it affects the products you buy from us, and what we are doing about it. Straight, no spin.
What Section 781 actually does
On November 12, 2025, Section 781 became law as part of the bill that ended the government shutdown. It is a one-page rewrite of how “hemp” is defined under federal law, and it changes two numbers that quietly decide what is legal.
For the plant: the 0.3% limit used to count only delta-9 THC. Now it counts total THC, including THCA, the compound that turns into THC when heated. That closes a workaround that let growers sell high-potency material designed to convert to THC later.
For finished products: a new, hard ceiling of 0.4mg per container, counting total THC plus any other cannabinoid with THC-like effects. Not per serving. Per container. The container is the bottle, jar, or package the product actually sits in.
The law also shuts out cannabinoids that do not come from the plant naturally: ones the hemp plant cannot produce at all, and ones made or converted in a lab, like most delta-8.
That 0.4mg number is the one that changes everything.
When it takes effect
The law was written to take effect one year after it passed, on November 12, 2026. In September 2026, Congress pushed most of it back about a month:
- November 12, 2026: only the ban on cannabinoids the hemp plant cannot produce naturally.
- December 11, 2026: everything else, including the total THC definition, the 0.4mg cap, and the ban on lab-converted cannabinoids.
We have never sold synthetic or lab-converted cannabinoids, so November 12 changes nothing on our shelves. December 11 is the date that matters for us.
The loophole this closes (and why we never used it)
Here is the part the scary headlines skip. The old rule measured THC as a percentage of weight. Percentages can be gamed. Make the product heavier, and you can legally pack in more actual THC.
Run the math. A 60-gram gummy at 0.3% by weight can legally hold up to 180mg of THC. So a “hemp” gummy carrying 10mg of THC, the kind of strength you would get from a licensed dispensary, was not even close to the legal ceiling. That is how intoxicating products ended up on gas station shelves wearing a “hemp” label.
We are a Michigan company. In Michigan, intoxicating THC products, including gummies and beverages, were only ever legal inside licensed dispensaries, under real oversight. The loophole let those same products skip the dispensary system completely. That was never right, and we never played that game. Made By Hemp has always been a CBD wellness company, not a dispensary in disguise.
So when Section 781 closes that loophole, we are not losing a business model. We never had that one.
Why this still affects real CBD, including some of ours
Now the honest part, because you deserve it.
That 0.4mg-per-container ceiling is so tight that it does not only catch the loophole products. It also catches legitimate full-spectrum CBD. Full-spectrum products keep the natural trace of THC that comes with the whole hemp plant, far under the old limit, but a full bottle can still hold much more than 0.4mg in total. Under the new rule, that is enough to make it federally unlawful.
That includes some of our own full-spectrum products. We are not going to pretend otherwise. A law broad enough to stop a 180mg gas-station gummy is also broad enough to stop a wellness tincture that has never gotten anyone high. That is exactly why we are paying attention, and why we are speaking up.
Where Made By Hemp stands
We are not going anywhere. Here is what that looks like in practice.
We are adapting our lineup. Where a full-spectrum product is affected, we are moving toward broad-spectrum, which removes the THC while keeping the other compounds from the plant, and toward CBD isolate, which is THC-free. You will still get real CBD from the people who have made it carefully since 2013. The label may change. The standards will not.
We are backing the fix. There is still time before December 11, 2026, and there are real efforts in Congress to repair this without throwing out legitimate CBD along with the loophole.
What might still change before December 11
There is a real deadline in play. The current government funding law runs out on December 11, 2026, the same day the main part of Section 781 takes effect. The next funding bill is the most likely place for another delay or a fix.
There are also about a dozen bills aimed squarely at hemp products. None has had a hearing or a committee vote yet. The ones worth knowing:
Repeal it
- Mace (HR 6209): repeal Section 781 and return to the 2018 definition.
Delay it
- Baird and Klobuchar (HR 7024 / S 3686): push the start date to November 12, 2028. This has the broadest support of any hemp bill, with 40 House cosponsors from both parties.
Replace it with real rules
- Barr (HR 9830, Lawful Hemp Protection Act): raise the limit to 1% total THC, ban synthetics, require buyers to be 21 or older, and have the FDA set milligram limits per serving.
- Griffith (HR 7212): a full FDA framework with registration, labeling, and limits per serving and per package.
- Wyden (S 3474): a 5mg-per-serving, 50mg-per-container standard under the FDA, with a path for cannabinoid dietary supplements.
- Paul, Klobuchar, and Ernst (S 4315): let states opt out of the federal definition and set their own rules.
Narrower bills
- Van Duyne (HR 10079) and LaLota (HR 9913): separate rules for hemp drinks.
- Booker (S 5022): full cannabis legalization that would also allow hemp CBD as a dietary supplement.
Where it stands today: the House passed its farm bill in April, and the Senate Agriculture Committee released its version in September. Neither one touches Section 781. The FDA was supposed to publish its list of covered cannabinoids and its definition of “container” by February 10, 2026, and still has not. And in December 2025, a presidential executive order acknowledged that some full-spectrum CBD products will be caught by this law and directed the White House to work with Congress on allowing appropriate full-spectrum CBD. The window is open, but it is narrowing.
If you care about access to real hemp wellness, the most useful things you can do are simple. Call your representatives. Support protections at the state level. And stay close to the brands you trust to do this right.
What this means for you
If you are a Made By Hemp customer, here is the short version. The products built to get you high were never ours. Some of our full-spectrum products are affected, and we are already moving them toward compliant broad-spectrum and isolate versions so you do not lose access to real CBD. We will tell you before anything changes.
We have been here since 2013. We plan to be here long after December 11, 2026.
Stay ahead of it. Join our email list to be the first to know as products change and as the law moves, and shop our current lineup while it is here.
