Trump, Texas SB3 & the Rescheduling Timeline: Jim Higdon on What Comes Next

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Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellan Finning. This week we've got a very special guest, Jim Higdon, co-founder of Cornbread Hemp and the US Hemp Roundtable. Jim, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today? Jim Higdon: Bryan, Kellan, it's great to see you guys. Doing great. Bryan Fields: Excited to dive in. Kellan, how are you? Kellan Finning: I'm doing really well. Thrilled to talk to Jim today — I mean, I just met him a couple weeks ago and I already feel like we're best friends, you know? How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I'm stoked. I think we got a really good dive into this at Benzinga, trying to understand a piece of the puzzle that I still can't fully wrap my head around, and I think Jim did a really good job laying out the structure, the implications, and what it all means. We'll talk about Texas, we'll talk about the closing of the loophole — but before we get into that, Jim, here's a bigger question: is there a future in your mind where hemp and cannabis can align? Is there a direction we're moving in where it makes sense for both sides to converge? Kellan Finning: Wild. Jim Higdon: I'm always working in my space in the hemp world for greater cannabis freedom, greater cannabis regulation, full-plant descheduling — that's always our goal, that's always our plan. And we get chirped at on the sidelines by people who don't understand that regulated cannabis, regulated marijuana, is living inside of a cage. They're mad that the hemp industry is outside of their cage, and they're trying to drag us into a cage that we're actually trying to free them from in the process. They're trying to drag us down, and it's frustrating — but this is why lifeguards are trained to go underwater when the person they're trying to save is drowning and grabbing at them: you've got to save yourself to save somebody else. We're in the process of legalizing cannabis by keeping legal hemp out of the cage while working to reschedule and deschedule cannabis at the same time. It's a difficult lift, especially relative to Congress, the White House, and both the current and former administrations, for whom it's not a priority. But in the process of creating regulations for hemp, we're laying the groundwork for legal cannabis. Bryan Fields: So just to be clear — when you talk about "the cage," you're talking about the regulatory, legal cannabis side — the MSOs and all the infrastructure and rules and regs they've had to build out and abide by in order to get off the ground? Jim Higdon: Marijuana — the type of cannabis that remains illegal under federal law — in order to exist and serve customers, can't engage in interstate commerce and has to abide by all these rules and regulations that are burdensome and onerous in a way no normal company or industry would ever have to bear, even before we talk about 280E tax penalties. An MSO has to recreate its entire supply chain inside a single state and can't export ingredients or half-finished products from one state to another. That burden alone is a cage. On top of that, these companies pay state taxes that fund the regulatory enforcement of a strict standard — and it has to be strict, because it remains illegal under federal law. There's no federal guidance, oversight, or function that provides what the state has to provide. State-legal cannabis is a cage — a necessary cage to build that economy until it's legal under federal law. It's a midpoint, not an endpoint, for what good cannabis regulation ought to look like. It's just what's necessary because it's illegal federally. Once we get to Schedule III and then descheduled, it's a different ballgame. We should all be looking toward what a descheduled regulatory scheme looks like for full-strength cannabis — flower, concentrates, vapes, and so on — because that's where this is all going, and hemp is already there, at least on the congressional legalization side. We still need regulations, and we're working on that. In the meantime, hemp is the camel's nose under the tent for what legal cannabis is going to look like. Getting rules of the road for hemp and cannabinoid products will set the framework for cannabinoid products that are legal today — hemp — and for the ones that are legal tomorrow, which is full-strength cannabis. So we're all working together, at least from my perspective. It's just frustrating that not everyone always sees it that way. Bryan Fields: I think that was clear, and definitely fair on a lot of sides. But let me ask you to put on a different hat. Say you're the leader of a large MSO that had to invest in infrastructure for these states — you fought through all those onerous rules and regs we agree are limiting, but that was the game as it existed. How would you feel in those shoes, and how would you think about making both sides work? Because at the end of the day, that's probably the real challenge — they've invested in this infrastructure, laid the groundwork, done everything you described. If you were wearing their hat, where does it make sense to go from here? Jim Higdon: I'll wear two hats at once, because I think this really breaks the state-legal marijuana industry into more than one basket. You've got MSOs, and then you've got smaller operators working below those MSOs. The MSOs have more flexibility because they have more capital, and some of them have already seen the writing on the wall and come over to the hemp side — moving into beverages and edibles, essentially saying, "well, we should just do that." I won't advertise for any specific MSO, but that's what some of them are doing. Below the MSOs, though, you've got independent operators who are probably hit hardest by all of this, because they're so emotionally invested in what they built within the confines they were allowed, and now they're watching competition emerge on the hemp side. For a lot of those folks, that emotional investment makes it hard to see past it, and I have a lot of empathy for those operators. It's tough to have invested that much. Bryan Fields: They put their life savings into it. They thought they were— Jim Higdon: It's identity, really. People want to be operators in the cannabis industry — it's a dream for a lot of us — and you invest in what you've invested in, only to see something shift on the other side of the fence. The MSOs are going to do what MSOs do: choose to participate on the hemp side or not, and some already have. That's just a decision about capital. What's heartbreaking is the level below that — the independent operators having a tough time. Bryan Fields: I think that's perfectly put, and that's really what I wanted to ask about next. How do those people shake out? They entered the market under one set of assumptions and rules, and now there's this big push forward that — you're right — most people think is the better approach overall, but then you've got the congressional gridlock on top of it. How do the small operators we're talking about make it through, given they went all in to get set up in the first place? Jim Higdon: It's tough. I'm rooting for them. When I travel to legal states, I meet their customers. The politics of this always take time, and the time we spend advocating for policy change at the federal level has to include advocating for these folks too. The rescheduling conversation under the last administration was unnecessarily burdensome — this whole administrative law hearing that ended up at the DEA and ran off the rails wasn't required by statute. It was a "belt and suspenders" approach, an attempt to do everything correctly under the last administration, but it wasn't legally necessary. We'll see how this administration handles the rescheduling process once it decides to prioritize the issue. As I understand the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the only thing required to reschedule or deschedule a drug is the HHS Secretary referring it to the Attorney General, who signs off, and it's done. If Secretary Kennedy sends Attorney General Pam Bondi a declaration of rescheduling or descheduling, all she has to do is sign it — there's no requirement for an administrative law hearing at the DEA. If the president wants it done, it can be done in an afternoon. So we'll see when this administration decides to prioritize it, and maybe then those smaller operators can get some relief — especially if rescheduling to Schedule III provides relief from 280E. Kellan Finning: Does that make it a fair playing field, though? Jim Higdon: No, not really — it's still going to be illegal under federal law until the FDA actually approves Schedule III cannabis drugs, and the FDA has been hostile to us from the start. There was an assumption that after the 2018 Farm Bill, the FDA would issue dietary supplement regulations for hemp — those regulations never came. Then a couple of Januarys ago, the FDA said outright that it needed more authority from Congress to regulate hemp products. Maybe the FDA's posture is different under the current administration — we don't know yet. If the FDA issued dietary supplement regulations for full-spectrum, CBD-dominant hemp products that include THC, that would be the first time cannabinoid products were regulated federally. If it takes additional legislation, Senator Wyden has proposed a bill along these lines — introduced last Congress, and I believe he's drafted a version to reintroduce this Congress with a Republican co-sponsor, with a House companion bill as well. That bill would regulate cannabinoid products broadly: rules of the road for hemp products nationally, including desperately needed labeling guidance, a potency cap for low-dose products, and guidance states could build on. That would cover cannabinoid products that are legal today, and lay the groundwork for regulating full-strength marijuana once that's legal too — because what the marijuana side should learn from hemp is that legalization by Congress is only half the battle. You get legalized, great, but if you don't get regulated, where does that leave you? That's the space hemp is in right now — neither here nor there, and it's not a great place to be. Legalizing is great, but you need regulation to let good actors and good products win the market. Bryan Fields: And sensible regulation — rooted in science and facts — versus where we are now, which, like you said, is a cage. I guess the bigger arc is that eventually these two tracks have to merge into one. It's just a matter of which direction that merger goes. Jim Higdon: Right, and there are already operators talking about a "one-plant" solution — breaking the market down into high-dose, low-dose, and microdose tiers. High-dose, full-strength marijuana and concentrates will always belong in a dispensary-style setting — there's always going to be a niche for dispensaries selling flower and high-dose products. Low-dose — 10 milligrams per serving and under, beverages and edibles — can exist anywhere age-gating happens: liquor stores, grocery stores, convenience stores. Those products can also pay into an excise tax regime that supports regulation of the broader marijuana marketplace in that state. Then microdose wellness products — under 5 milligrams of THC but high in CBD — belong in pharmacies and natural health food stores, wherever people go looking for relief from pain, anxiety, and sleep issues, and who aren't dispensary customers. Cornbread's own place in the market is a full-strength gummy company selling direct-to-consumer, and our customers are mostly women in the suburbs looking for relief from pain, anxiety, and sleep. They are not dispensary customers — we're not stealing customers from dispensaries, we're creating new customers in the cannabis market. Bryan Fields: Do you think Congress understands the nuanced differences between the two tracks, and how that makes things more complicated? When both sides try to communicate the differences, the benefits, and the drawbacks, don't you think it's just too much for them — like, "this is too hard, I don't know"? Or do you think they actually understand the differences, understand the loophole, and know what they're voting on when these new regulations move through committee and to the House floor? Jim Higdon: It depends on the member of Congress, and how much weight hemp carries for a given member really depends on the state they're in. It's easy for people in states with big, regulated cannabis markets to take that market for granted — those markets don't exist everywhere. Texas doesn't have a flower market. Texas is a giant state, geographically and by population — it's huge, and there are no dispensaries there. So how are the millions of veterans in Texas accessing cannabis, if not through illegal dealers or out of the trunk of a car in a parking lot? It's 2025 in America — every American needs access to some kind of THC product, whether it comes from hemp or marijuana. That distinction is largely irrelevant to the consumer; it just needs to be safe, effective, tested, and age-gated so kids aren't getting it. One thing we've learned from hemp is that whatever anyone envisioned legalization looking like, this isn't it — legalization is a messy, uneven process, and we're living in part of that uneven phase right now. When we saw each other two weeks ago in Chicago, I told you we're living in the future that Texas is giving us, and we just didn't know yet what that future would be. Everyone was waiting to see — some people said the governor would veto, others said "sure, that sounds nice, but it's the governor of Texas, I'll believe it when I see it." And we got what the optimists said would happen: Texas's governor vetoing a total THC ban means prohibition doesn't stick in Texas. And if prohibition isn't welcome in Texas, where is it? The only other place hemp products have been prohibited is Arkansas, which has a robust medical program of its own. Prohibition is dead, and members of Congress are going to see that and understand it — the entire Texas congressional delegation has certainly felt it, and now they have to decide which side they're on, because the days of prohibition are numbered once the governor of Texas vetoes it. Bryan Fields: The genie can't go back in the box. Jim Higdon: No — not in Texas, anyway. Bryan Fields: For our listeners, can you set up the two main players and what the bill actually was? I think you did a really good job breaking it down before. Jim Higdon: You're going to get me in trouble, but — all right. We're invested in the cannabis space, so we'll focus on the THC piece of it, but just know it's entirely possible this whole fight had very little to do with THC itself, that it's really power politics writ large — Texas is a Shakespearean play of power, and we're just a tool being used somewhere in Act Three of a five-act play. And again, you're going to get me in trouble, but here goes: the lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, is a powerful person. Texas is structured so the lieutenant governor is also president of the Senate, which puts him in a very powerful position running an entire chamber of a two-chamber legislature — and Dan Patrick wields that power effectively. Effectively enough that people in Texas told me other senators are afraid of him, that he runs the Senate through fear. I don't know if that's literally true, but that's the sense you get in Texas — that the lieutenant governor runs the Senate and people fear his retribution. Then he went over to the House and forced it to vote in favor of his version of the bill, even though there was a competing House bill that was actually quite good. Chairman Ken King, from the relevant Texas House committee, had worked on a regulatory bill that took some time but turned out well — it taxed hemp products by milligram of THC rather than by the gallon, which showed real thought. Chairman King earned a lot of my respect in this process as someone genuinely trying to get it right and pass something workable. But Dan Patrick stepped on Chairman King's bill and forced a vote on his own version instead. Now — if you're the governor, and your lieutenant governor already controls one chamber of the legislature, do you want him controlling both chambers too? Generally the answer is no — you don't want a subordinate controlling an entire separate branch of government that's supposed to be equal to you, because that effectively makes your lieutenant governor your equal. That's the power dynamic this veto was really about — the flavor of what's being vetoed, THC, is essentially secondary. The calculus, presumably, was that the lieutenant governor believed the governor wouldn't veto the bill in an election year, since vetoing a THC bill could expose the governor to his right flank in a Republican primary. Instead — call it a knife fight in a phone booth between two skilled political operators — the lieutenant governor overplayed his hand. Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, came into Texas, polled the issue, and found it was an 80-20 issue statewide — only 20 percent of Texans agreed with the lieutenant governor. Even inside the Republican primary electorate, which in Texas is really the only electorate that matters for statewide office, support for SB3 only rose to about 35 percent, with 48 percent in favor of a veto. So even without a clean majority, a plurality of Republican primary voters disagreed with the lieutenant governor — he overplayed his hand, and the governor called him on it. That's where we are now. The lieutenant governor is presumably still holding that card and expecting to run SB3 back. When the special session comes around in late July, we'll likely see something close to Chairman King's bill move through the House again, and then we'll see what happens in the Senate. It's a special session, so any other topic on the agenda could get pulled into horse-trading between issues — you could end up with something crazy from a backroom deal, especially in the middle of a Texas summer when it's 110 degrees and everyone just wants to get home. We'll see what happens. Bryan Fields: So why do you think he overplayed his hand? And there had to be some understanding that Trump would want to be involved or aware of what was happening, and possibly influence it. So why overplay it? Jim Higdon: It's easy inside a Republican echo chamber to assume THC is the same political whipping boy it's always been — until it isn't. Not unlike gay marriage, which was a punching bag for a long time, until suddenly it wasn't, and the shift happened fast for anyone caught on the wrong side of it. It seems like we're in the same kind of paradigm — nothing happens for a long time, and then everything happens at once, and Dan Patrick caught himself on the wrong side of the tipping point. Kellan Finning: How much do you think hemp-derived THC's rise played into that whole paradigm shift? Jim Higdon: Hemp-derived THC products changed public perception of THC, because they exist, they're legal, the world hasn't ended, and people are largely fine with it. Is it a nuisance sometimes — roadside stores with flags advertising THC, an eyesore here and there? Sure. But that's about the extent of it. People keep pushing the "it's dangerous for children" narrative, which is where the lieutenant governor's argument lives, but when the governor of California was defending his own ban in court, the best he could point to was one death associated with THC gummies nationally — a tragedy involving a four-year-old in Virginia — one death in ten years. That's not a statistic, that's a tragedy, and it's not enough to drive policy. Bryan Fields: How big is the THC market in Texas? Jim Higdon: The number I keep hearing is eight billion dollars. Bryan Fields: So they were about to veto — end — an eight-billion-dollar market. Jim Higdon: Right. Because they assumed THC and marijuana were the same whipping boy they were back in 1971 under the Nixon administration, when you could divide and conquer the silent majority by painting marijuana as bad because of "the hippies and the Blacks." You can't do that anymore — people know that's nonsense. Bryan Fields: Devil's lettuce, yeah. The jobs angle and that staggering number you just shared — that's the kind of information that should matter most to Congress on both sides: the jobs, the revenue, the tax opportunity — on top of the scientific case we're all trying to push forward. Jim Higdon: Honestly, the scientific case is secondary. Until you resolve the cultural and political question, science just gets used to justify whatever people are already feeling emotionally. The science is great, but it mostly bolsters what people already want to feel. It's a feelings issue — big, strong Republican men don't want to admit they have feelings, but their politics are absolutely dictated by them. Kellan Finning: I agree. Look at any state that runs a medical program and then opens a recreational market — the medical market basically disappears. Jim Higdon: It crashes. Bryan Fields: My anxiety is still my anxiety, though, Kellan — it just stopped mattering once I left New York. I wasn't allowed to bring it to other states. Jim Higdon: Your anxiety is basically saying, "I'll pay more in taxes on the rec side if it means I don't have to deal with a card." Bryan Fields: There it is. But I still have anxiety — it's still there, I just need the products either way. Jim Higdon: Meanwhile alcohol consumption is dropping through the floor while we squabble inside the cannabis industry between adult-use operators and the hemp side. Distilled spirits manufacturers, winemakers, and their distributors are throwing rocks at us from the top of the cliff, and they've had a hundred years to build up political capital to do it. We're just the latest massive, established industry we've managed to annoy. Marijuana and hemp need to work together, because our real opposition is far more established than we are — richer, better funded, more sophisticated politically. We're wandering into a room saying "hey, this room looks great" — no, it doesn't, this room belongs to someone else. Bryan Fields: We own this room. So — you said it well: if prohibition doesn't work in Texas, it probably doesn't work much anywhere anymore. As this percolates, what do you think Trump's role is here, and do you think he was watching the Texas situation closely? Jim Higdon: The Benzinga conference in Chicago was great — my first one, though I know people do them a lot — and it was a chance to get out into the real world and see people you don't otherwise cross paths with. In a good conversation on the sidelines Monday night of Benzinga, I was told two things that were certain to happen. One, that Governor Abbott was certain to veto SB3 — that the memo had already been written, it was a done deal, and the polling was 80-20 in favor of a veto. Two, that the Trump White House was going to move behind that veto to push the rescheduling conversation forward in a more expedited fashion than it had been handled under the Biden administration. Since then, things have played out exactly as I was told they would — to a T, right down to polling numbers that hadn't even been published yet at the time but were released and matched later that week. So if the first part turned out to be true, the second part is worth taking seriously too. Tony Fabrizio did the Texas polling — he's Trump's pollster, not a White House staffer, but on the campaign side — so if he's polling Texas, he's very likely doing similar polling internally for the Trump team on the federal question. If the Trump White House wants to move expeditiously to reschedule or deschedule cannabis, they can — and if they want to use Texas as cover to do it, they can do that too. It's just a matter of priority, a matter of finding the time in the day to make it happen. Bryan Fields: When you say "expedited" — earlier you said it could happen in an afternoon. With politics, "expedited" could mean end of this year, early 2026, or literally within the hour. What does expedited actually mean here? Jim Higdon: My understanding of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 — which created the drug schedule we're dealing with today, the prison cannabis lives in as a Schedule I substance alongside LSD and heroin, which is a political designation, not a medical or scientific one — is that the way to reschedule or deschedule a drug can either require congressional action, or it can be done by the Secretary of Health and Human Services referring a rescheduling or descheduling decision to the Attorney General, who signs off and sends it to the President, and it's done. It doesn't require a mountain of bureaucracy — well, it is bureaucracy, but really it only requires three people: the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Attorney General, and the President. If those three people get in a room, they can make it happen in an afternoon. The administrative law judge hearing process at the DEA isn't required by statute — that was extra process the Biden administration layered on to make it more palatable to various stakeholders. The three people could genuinely do it in an afternoon. Bryan Fields: Are there signals we should watch for to know this is getting closer, or do you think we'd just see it break as major news out of nowhere? Jim Higdon: Interesting question. Anything involving Trump traveling to Texas, or Trump and the governor of Texas in any capacity, would be a signal. Any post on Truth Social at two or three in the morning — who knows where something like that comes from in the world we live in — could be a signal too. But some direct communication between the governor of Texas and the White House would be a strong one. Bryan Fields: Are there any other bills you'd expect to come forward as cover, or as a precursor to more regulation? Jim Higdon: We've already seen the House Appropriations bill, carrying hemp-killing amendments from Andy Harris of Maryland, pass out of committee and head to the House floor. So there's going to be a House floor fight over the hemp program in appropriations soon, and that could be a signal too — whether the president supports or is indifferent to that fight on the floor, and how it shakes out in the Senate, could both tell us something. Bryan Fields: That makes sense. I'm trying to line up all the pieces in my head and figure out what's signal, what's just noise, and what's actually influence. From your perspective — obviously Andy Harris is pushing against you guys — is there a chance his bill gets squashed and something else comes forward instead? How do all these pieces come together? How do we get to a point where both sides genuinely unify and fight the right fight, the way you described earlier? Jim Higdon: A few things. First, the odds of a farm bill passing this year are about the same as they were last year, and the year before that, and the year before that — we're three years behind on what's supposed to be a five-year farm bill. We've basically already lost this farm bill cycle because of congressional inaction, and because Republicans have used the farm bill in a partisan way to try to gut free school lunch, WIC, and SNAP — food programs that feed poor people while also paying farmers to grow the food that feeds them — putting those programs on the chopping block, which means no Democrat will vote for it. That means it needs every single Republican vote, and when there's a provision Republicans themselves don't like — like this anti-hemp language, when a number of Republicans actually support the hemp program, including THC hemp products — it becomes hard for the Speaker to get the bill passed. So it's unlikely the Andy Harris language passes the full floor as written, but we'll see. It's an interesting provision because it does two things. The piece we're most concerned about is that it makes any quantifiable amount of THC illegal outright. But if you set that piece aside, the other change is that it moves the hemp definition from a Delta-9 THC standard — the current 0.3 percent Delta-9 threshold — to a total THC standard, which may actually be closer to what Congress intended back in 2018. If Congress passed a farm bill that shifted from a Delta-9 standard to a total THC standard, it would eliminate the THCA flower market and pull every synthetic cannabinoid — delta-8, HHC, whatever it is — under that same 0.3 percent cap instead of letting them float outside it because they aren't technically delta-9. That's a plausible, maybe even likely, outcome we all need to plan for. Some folks in the hemp industry won't like it; others can adapt to it. I think most people in the marijuana industry would actually favor it, because it could eliminate the THCA flower market, which marijuana operators see as direct competition. But — and this circles back to our earlier point — some operators in the cannabis space have looked at the THCA flower market and thought, "we can do that too," and they are doing it. Especially in California, where THCA hemp flower is illegal, you've got California operators growing THCA flower and exporting it to other states — which is perfectly legal. But if a total-THC standard passes, whether through the farm bill or the appropriations package, that THCA flower market dries up, and that might make the broader hemp market more palatable to the marijuana industry. Bryan Fields: There's almost a concession built into that. I just want to underline one thing you said — "the way Congress intended in 2018." That was seven years ago. They made a mistake, and they're only now getting around to fixing it. Jim Higdon: Right, that's not exactly the Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law, but it tells you how this actually works. And I don't love calling it a "loophole" — a loophole implies something intentional to exploit. I think the real story is that nobody in Congress understands math, or the metric system. Whose fault is that? Congress's, honestly — though you could also blame the U.S. education system. I've had to walk so many people through this: we sell gummies that weigh five grams. 0.3 percent of five grams is 15 milligrams, and 15 milligrams of Delta-9 THC will absolutely get you high. That's the letter of the law, technically compliant — but 0.3 percent of five grams is a lot. Kellan Finning: Yeah, it's a lot. Bryan Fields: Kellan actually whiteboarded this for us a few years ago, and I remember thinking, "what are we doing here?" Nobody explained this clearly to anyone — there's no way any member of Congress looked at this and said, "yes, this is exactly what we intended." Jim Higdon: Back in 2018, the only product on shelves was CBD oil — droppers, the kind with an eyedropper. One dropper is one milliliter, and one milliliter of oil is about one gram, because the metric system is perfect. 0.3 percent of one gram is three milligrams. So under the 2018 Farm Bill, 0.3 percent effectively meant three milligrams — because of the product actually on the market at the time. Nobody anticipated the rapid product innovation that followed legalization — nobody anticipated gummies, or that gummies would weigh more than a dropper of oil, so that 0.3 percent of something heavier would just be more THC. Kellan Finning: It was probably all based on GW Pharma — they'd just come out with their tincture, and that's likely where the regulatory mindset was at the time. Jim Higdon: More likely brands like Charlotte's Web and Medterra — the early first-generation CBD brands, like cbdMD, that were selling oils. Nobody was holding back some grand plan for gummy innovation when the 2018 Farm Bill passed — it just didn't exist yet. And then on top of gummies, beverages came along and completely changed the game. Bryan Fields: Just like everyone forecasted, right? There's an obvious logic to it — the most natural way people consume things socially is by drinking, it's easy, it's familiar. Once people recognized that, it exploded, because not everyone wants to smoke, and people like to feel relaxed. And like you said, alcohol's been declining — so what went up in its place? Jim Higdon: Nobody anticipated that marijuana legalization, in effect, would arrive in the form of a can. That's not on anyone specifically — show me the 1995 diary entry predicting that. Bryan Fields: I can show you one from 2021 — I was writing about this myself. In fairness, I didn't see it playing out exactly like this either, and it happened faster than I expected. I always figured beverages would be the vehicle for wider adoption, I just didn't picture it unfolding quite this way. Jim Higdon: And it's happened fast. Liquor stores in Minnesota report that 15 percent of their revenue now comes from THC beverages. In Texas, there are whole aisles of Total Wine dedicated to THC beverages. It's not a blip — it's actively eating into the spirits industry. Sixty-four percent of legal-age Gen Z adults aren't drinking alcohol at all, and they're not coming back to it — it's not that they quit, they just never started, and they're not going to. No amount of advertising, no amount of Bud Light campaigns, is going to get those kids drinking. Bryan Fields: Alcohol companies know this. Jim Higdon: They absolutely know it. So, DISCUS — the Distilled Spirits Council, the trade group for whiskey, bourbon, and vodka makers — supports the Andy Harris amendment to kill us outright. The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, the WSWA, who by some accounts started this fight last year, actually oppose DISCUS and oppose the Harris amendment, because they want to distribute the products we're making. So the alcohol industry itself is split between manufacturers and distributors over which side to take. And retailers want to sell our products too, because they understand kids just aren't buying alcohol. Bryan Fields: So in the simplest terms — we're this tiny lightweight, and now two heavyweights are stepping in to fight on our behalf, purely because of how things happened to shake out. Jim Higdon: Pretty much a Godzilla-versus-Mothra situation. Bryan Fields: And we're just kind of standing off to the side going, "that's really cool that they're stepping in to defend us" — even though really, everyone's just helping themselves. So let's break it down. It's June 26th today. Can we realistically expect rescheduling in the next two months? Jim Higdon: The Texas special session starts July 21st, so that's when things get hot again. If there's going to be White House follow-through, it would logically land around the close of the special session — that's just how the calendar lines up. The big splash has already been made, and now things will settle for a bit, people will be talking, but then July 21st, it's game on again in Austin. I don't know how long these special sessions typically run — a week, two weeks, until they get something done — I'm new to the Texas process. But once Governor Abbott signs a bill that isn't prohibition, that's probably the most productive moment for the White House to act. Bryan Fields: And the timeline on Andy Harris's bill? Jim Higdon: I honestly don't know. Congress is in session through July, then there's an August recess, so I don't know what the Speaker's plan is for moving this specific bill, given everything else competing for floor time — where the Ag appropriations bill ranks in that list of priorities. But the Speaker is definitely hearing from members of his own party who don't support the Harris language and may not vote for it as written without an amendment. That means you'd need an amendment cleared by the Rules Committee to get a floor vote, and it's an open question whether Democrats would vote for a floor amendment that some Republicans also support — that could plausibly happen. On the Senate side, the same process is playing out, just a step behind. It seems unlikely, though not impossible, that appropriations reaches the Senate floor before the August recess — so realistically, this issue probably takes real shape in the autumn, after Congress comes back. Bryan Fields: That makes a ton of sense. Last question — are you optimistic? Jim Higdon: I'm always an optimist — you kind of have to be in this line of work, because there's so much bad news all the time that you have to hold onto the idea that there's still a chance to get this right, and there's a path to it. The Texas veto has put real wind in the sails — not just for the hemp industry, but for the cannabis industry as a whole. Prohibition failed in Texas — that's a big deal, not just for hemp but for marijuana and cannabis together. That's going to make Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation think twice about voting for the Andy Harris amendment, and it gives them cover to vote for a floor amendment repealing that language. It also gives the president cover to prioritize rescheduling, if he decides to. So, yeah — it's a good time to be an optimist. Let me clarify, though: it's a good time to be an optimist narrowly on this specific issue. Bryan Fields: I love it — optimism is back. It's been down for a while, Jim. Optimism is optimism, and there's been too much doom and gloom — it's good to see some come back. So Jim, thanks for taking the time. For anyone who wants to get in touch or learn more, where's the best place to find you? Jim Higdon: Come find us at cornbreadhemp.com, look for Cornbread Hemp on social media, and if you want to argue with me on X, I'm @jimhigdon. Bryan Fields: Awesome, thanks for taking the time — this was a lot of fun. Jim Higdon: Thanks, guys.