A federal judge on Friday declined to postpone a change in state hemp regulations, set to take effect Saturday, that seven Virginia companies say will remove their ability to sell many products and could wipe out their businesses entirely.
The change makes selling hemp gummies, drinks, oils and other products with more than 2 milligrams per package of tetrahydrocannabinol — THC, the main intoxicating compound in cannabis — illegal in Virginia.
It came out of the state budget bill, finalized in June, that also will allow a limited number of licensed Virginia retailers to sell marijuana starting July 1 of next year.
Hemp business owners, represented by attorney and former state Sen. Chap Petersen, appeared Wednesday in federal court in Roanoke to ask U.S. District Judge Robert Ballou to delay the new rule, arguing that it will cause them significant harm and is happening too quickly for them to adjust.
“It will nullify, in some cases, 80 to 90% of their revenue and products,” Petersen said during the three-and-a-half-hour court hearing.
But Ballou said in his opinion published Friday that the businesses had not met the standards required for him to grant a delay and that “it is not the role of this Court to second-guess the Virginia legislature in setting an effective date for the new law.”
Petersen has previously said he hoped to postpone the new rule at least until the Virginia General Assembly could reconsider it. He has said that it came out of a rushed budget process that lacked public hearings and other standard processes.
In an interview Friday after the ruling, Petersen said that he was “disappointed” and that his clients could appeal the judge’s decision but they had not yet decided what steps to take next.
“I thought we put forward pretty compelling evidence of the economic harm to my clients. I don’t know what else we could do,” Petersen said.
Companies say THC rule change could put them out of business
Up until the change in law, businesses have been able to sell hemp products with more than 2 milligrams of THC per package if the products also had at least 25 parts of cannabidiol — CBD, a non-intoxicating component of cannabis — for each part of THC. The products also must have no greater than 0.3% total THC.
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https://cardinalnews.org/2026/08/14/judge-declines-to-delay-thc-rule-change-for-hemp-products/
