In 2022, five 14-year-old girls in Des Moines, Iowa, ended up dizzy, vomiting and with racing hearts after buying and consuming colorful delta-8 gummies branded Death by Gummy Bears, made by a Minnesota company called Northland Vapor. The girls later told police they didn’t know what they were. One girl was paranoid and kept repeating that she didn’t want to die. Two were later treated in the emergency room. 

The FDA issued a warning letter to Northland Vapor after the Iowa incident and separately after a 23-year-old man died from consuming the same product. Minnesota’s own Board of Pharmacy sued the company, saying its gummies violated state THC limits. Litigation is ongoing. This entire ordeal occurred because of a federal loophole nobody in Congress intended to create. Recently, Congress voted to keep that loophole open for at least one more month. 

The root of the issue dates back to the 2018 Farm Bill, which defined legal hemp using a narrow measure of delta-9 THC content. Nobody in Congress thought that definition would let chemists manufacture a completely new category of intoxicating cannabinoids like delta-8 and delta-10, which could then be sold anywhere like candy bars and Cheetos.

Minnesota’s own poison control data shows that cannabis-related exposure calls involving children under 12 rose from zero in 2016 to 63 in 2021, and by 2022 the state was tracking well over 1,000 THC exposure calls a year. Nationally, a peer-reviewed study found delta-8 THC exposures alone reported to poison centers rose nearly 80% between 2021 and 2022. Minnesota was among the states with the highest exposure rates in the country in both years measured.

Related: Congress needs to think about how hemp helps people like me

Congress finally took action in November 2025, passing a bipartisan fix that redefines hemp using a total-THC standard and bans synthetic cannabinoids that don’t naturally occur in the plant. It was supposed to take effect Nov. 12 of this year. Instead, language was slipped into the recently passed continuing resolution that pushes that date back to Dec. 11. Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., tried to strip out that delay entirely and keep the original deadline, but his amendment was tabled, 61-32. 

Every week this loophole stays open is another week these exact products, delta-8 and delta-10 gummies designed to look like ordinary candy, stay on shelves at Minnesota gas stations and convenience stores. Thirty-five state attorneys general sent a letter to Congress warning that any delay hands this industry another opportunity to reopen a loophole that was already voted closed. This isn’t just a warning from hemp haters. It’s a warning coming from law enforcement officials and families watching the same products keep showing up in poison control data and emergency rooms nationwide. 

Minnesota already has its own cautionary tale sitting in a pharmacy board’s lawsuit file. The federal fix exists specifically to make sure gray-market operators can’t keep exploiting a loophole no one intended, in Minnesota or any other state. 

This isn’t a fight about hemp farmers growing necessary products, and it was never meant to be. It’s about whether Congress permanently closes a loophole it already voted to close or lets an industry that’s profited from confused parents and unregulated gas station shelves buy itself another month or longer.

Congressional leaders have the chance to make sure that doesn’t happen. Minnesota kids shouldn’t have to wait on Washington’s timeline to be protected from products that already sent their peers to the hospital. 

Minnesota Sen. Warren Limmer, a Republican, represents District 37 in the Legislature.

A Thursday Voices commentary offered a differing viewpoint on hemp regulations.

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