Capitol Hemp, a D.C.-based hemp retailer, is suing the federal government, arguing its unclear and restrictive hemp regulations prevent the establishment of a viable marijuana market. The shop’s suit challenges the Harris Rider, a ban blocking Washington from fully creating a legal cannabis selling market.
This filing comes almost a year after the shop was visited by the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration and told it was an illegal cannabis operator.
The suit consists of two smaller ones. The first, filed on Thursday in Superior Court, argues that due to hemp’s removal from the federal Controlled Substances Act via the 2018 Farm Bill, D.C. lacks the authority to regulate the distribution of hemp. According to a press release sent to GreenState, “a year of shifting enforcement actions and contradictory government statements [have] left Capitol Hemp branded as an illegal operator — despite selling only federally legal, hemp-derived products.”
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Pamela Wexler, counsel for Capitol Hemp, points out that “the word hemp doesn’t even appear in the D.C. Code,” suggesting that the District’s condemnation of the shop requires the retailer to have had the supernatural ability to assume that what they were doing was illegal without any actual legislation about the matter.
The second suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, alleges that the District’s attempts to regulate hemp create a “constitutional conundrum.” The Harris Amendment is a congressional rider that blocks the District from legislating on Schedule 1 substances, a ban that was renewed last year despite efforts to overturn it. Capitol Hemp claims that since D.C. is legislating to define hemp—and since they still treat it as a Schedule 1 substance—the District is violating its own rider, which is the only thing standing in the way of progress on the matter.
“I am deeply disappointed by the lack of leadership demonstrated by the Mayor and DC Council regarding Hemp laws in the District. Instead of providing clear guidance, I now find myself being forced to seek clarity through litigation in two separate courts,” Amsterdam said when asked for comment.
In addition to the filings, Alan Amsterdam, the owner of Capitol Hemp, released draft legislation in an attempt to gain support for their efforts to eliminate the ambiguity surrounding D.C.’s hemp regulations. The proposed HARVEST Act of 2025—short for Hemp Agriculture Reform, Verification, Enforcement, Standards, and Transparency—would align D.C. law with federal standards—but even this might be challenging given the current state of the Harris Rider.
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Because of the rider’s prohibition of legislation of Schedule 1 substances, the HARVEST Act’s proposal might be in and of itself unlawful. As the company’s press release asserts, “what began as a narrow appropriations limitation has evolved into a structural deadlock – one that blocks even the most basic act of legislating in response to federal change.”
Capitol Hemp’s lawsuits against D.C. and the federal government have the potential to bring light to the loopholes present in much of the law that make cannabis retailers’ lives unnecessarily challenging, an issue that will only grow as cannabis law continues to get murky across the country.