It’s not growing or harvesting season yet, so the hemp fields are bare. But inside a warehouse, there is plenty of product, and each bud means business, but according to some hemp industry leaders, their business could be at risk.

Nicholas Patrick, owner of Embrace CBD Wellness, said he got into the hemp industry after going through chemotherapy in 2012 and realized the plant helped him with nausea and cope with the stress of fighting cancer.

“I started using CBD flower and smoking CBD flower when I was going through all that stuff,” Patrick said.

Despite the budding hemp industry, Patrick said language in the adult-use cannabis industry legislation being debated in Annapolis could snuff out hemp’s future. In November 2022, voters in Maryland approved legal adult-use marijuana, and the General Assembly was tasked with setting up the industry’s regulation and infrastructure during the 90-day session.

Included in the adult-use framework system is language that seeks to cap the level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, included in hemp-derived products, like CBD oil or Delta-8. Delta-8 is a strain of THC that’s different than the type of THC that’s included in traditional cannabis products — that’s Delta-9.

“Inside this massive bill are a few lines that threaten to upend the entire hemp industry,” Patrick said. “The THC milligram cap will make it so the only product we will be able to sell is a CBD isolate product.”