DocRob

The CEO of one of the largest cannabinoid suppliers in the country emailed me today. He sent a catalog. In that catalog were THCP, THC-O, HHC — chemically converted and semi-synthetic cannabinoids, offered for sale by the kilogram. Out of curiosity I called the number and met a representative for Bret Worley, not Bret himself. Tyler told me Bret founded HIFA, the organization that has spent millions lobbying Congress and the White House to keep chemical conversion alive. Here’s what makes that call extraordinary. Bret Worley is not just any industry executive. NBC News reported in August that that he is the son-in-law of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — married to her youngest daughter. Republican senators have complained directly to their leadership about the White House’s push to delay the hemp ban, Susie Wiles’ office. The same White House that asked Congress for “fair treatment of hemp products” is connected, by marriage, to the man selling Schedule I-adjacent product out of a Colorado warehouse. THCP is already Schedule I. It always has been. The DEA’s May 2026 rule put chemically converted cannabinoids on the synthetic side of the line. And under the law Congress passed, cannabinoids the plant cannot naturally produce lose hemp status on November 12 — not December 11. The December date only covers what the plant can make. THCP is not something the plant makes. It is something a lab makes from CBD. So the picture is this: a company whose CEO has a family tie to the top of the White House is circulating a wholesale catalog of products that federal organizations have classified as controlled substances. The farmer  who tests a tenth of a percent over the threshold gets his crop destroyed, his license revoked, and in some cases loses everything. The converter gets White House access, a catalog, and from what I’ve been hearing a 2 year runway to get through all of their stockpiles of what I can only assume are imported from other countries.  There are legislative documents circulating right now that would put guardrails on the hemp industry while still allowing naturally occurring cannabinoids. HIFA and the Hemp Roundtable continually block them from going forward if they don’t include conversions, because their business model relies on converting cannabinoids and keeping raw material providers like the American farmer out of the equation and useful only as precursor growers who take all the risk and reap none of the reqard. If the hemp industry, the medicinal marijuana industry, and the recreational marijuana industry all grouped together and pointed out the obvious … That chemical conversion companies should not be allowed to participate in cannabis and should stay in the pharmaceutical realm, which is what they are most closely adjacent to.  We could get something across the finish line. But no one is going to agree when we’ve got people like this man saying he represents us, because he does not. Just because he’s found a way to extract money by selling what I personally believe are already Schedule I drugs, converted, and therefore unable to take the hemp exemption…  he has taken that money and used it to lobby Congress and even state-level lawmakers to continue doing exactly this. This is an obvious abuse of the American farmer, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate that is being ignorant of the facts in exchange for money. If you didn’t know that, now you do. Now do something about it. This is not a eulogy for hemp. Hemp has a real future in American agriculture as a rotation crop, a fiber source, a building material, a feed ingredient, and yes, as a source of naturally occurring cannabinoids grown under the rules. That future is worth fighting for. What I am saying is that the people currently negotiating the terms of that future are the same people who spent eight years exploiting the loopholes that destroyed it. They parade farmers at hearings and in press releases as proof they care. They don’t.