The Star Missouri
Gov. Kehoe, Missouri General Assembly betrayed President Trump on hemp | Opinion
There is a distinction worth understanding before this story makes sense. I am in the hemp industry — not the marijuana industry.
We work with the same plant, governed by different legal definitions, different rules and a different relationship with the taxpayer. Missouri law subsidizes a marijuana industry tax deduction unavailable to any other business, compensating them for what federal tax rules won’t allow.
Walk into a dispensary, and you will find a security apparatus you would never tolerate at a liquor store or a winery. That is not safety. That is design. In my wife’s and my hemp store, we receive no subsidies — only the same deductions every American business receives.
We provide relief, not the highest THC content on the shelf. TOP VIDEOS Gov. Mike Kehoe has signed legislation that places Missouri in direct conflict with President Donald Trump’s agenda. On April 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opened the door to a Medicare CBD pilot for qualifying older adults.
The same week, Missouri slammed that door shut by taking steps to ban intoxicating hemp. The General Assembly did the work. Gov. Kehoe made it permanent. One must ask, in good conscience: How does this serve Missouri’s residents? The president has been unambiguous about veterans’ access to alternative therapies to manage pain.
Veterans returned from war carrying wounds that do not show on an X-ray. The Department of Veterans Affairs offered opioids that bred addiction, and antidepressants that deepened despair. Since the smoke of 9/11 cleared, more than 140,000 veterans have died by their own hand — a toll exceeding the combat fatalities of Vietnam and every conflict since. Missouri House Bill 2641 abandons them to darkness, or to the black market.
Many veterans found in legal hemp a path toward life, and chose to take it. They chose to thrive, and in doing so, preserved their Second Amendment rights — rights they forfeit the moment they walk through the door of a marijuana dispensary. Kehoe has closed that door. The men and women who bled for this country deserve leaders who recognize that safety comes from expanding options, not eliminating them. Marijuana lobby wrote bill, Kehoe signed In Kansas City, hemp retailers are being red carded before the World Cup even kicks off.
Consider Sacred Leaf KC, a locally owned shop in Westport built by a service-connected disabled veteran, carrying full lab documentation, clear labeling and an owner who has publicly called for stronger hemp regulation. In November 2025, the Missouri Attorney General issued a civil investigative demand, and in March this year, a cease and desist against 33 hemp shops in the state. The evidence? Lab results supplied not by any state laboratory, but by MoCannTrade — the same marijuana lobby that filed civil suits against Sacred Leaf in Jackson County seeking millions in damages.
Let that sink in. The marijuana industry collected the evidence. Thirty-one of 33 businesses targeted came directly from MoCannTrade’s report. The AG signed the warrants. This is lawfare — the same instrument wielded against President Trump, now turned against Missouri’s hemp farmers and small business owners.
Someone wants this market cleared before the cameras arrive. Catherine Hanaway was appointed attorney general by Gov. Kehoe directly from her partnership at Husch Blackwell, a law firm with a national cannabis practice and a platinum sponsoring membership in MoCannTrade. The marijuana industry’s law firm trained the state’s attorney general.
The marijuana industry’s lobby bankrolls that law firm. The marijuana industry’s evidence fills the AG’s case files. That is not law enforcement. That is a hired gun carrying a state seal. “The goal isn’t justice. It’s attrition. Drain our money, freeze our operations, damage our name, and watch us fold without ever proving we did anything wrong,” said Emmitt Monslow, operator of Sacred Leaf Kansas City. “Kansas City has been here before. This is the Pendergast era — just with a different product.”
Tom Pendergast effectively ran Missouri for two decades from a Kansas City office, picking winners, burying losers and calling it progress. The suits changed. The machine did not. Missouri’s modern Pendergast has a name: Steve Tilley, the marijuana industry’s top lobbyist and former Missouri House speaker. The cost of this machine is real.
For four years, our company Slaphappy Beverage has kept its doors open. In November, we lock them forever. Our invitation to Kehoe remains open: Come to the Hemporium. Come see the dreams you have destroyed.
