Editor’s Update: As of mid-November, 2025, the MAGA Congress passed the legislation described in this earlier article. Nobody in the marijuana industry is yet 100% sure how this legislation will be implemented, but foreign marijuana seed sellers are already seeing shipments of seeds into the USA seized and destroyed by US Customs.

Until a few years ago, it was illegal to sell or ship marijuana seeds, especially internationally. Sellers and buyers risked severe legal penalties. Some seed sellers operated in public and shipped seeds internationally; many of them were hunted by Interpol and suffered other consequences.

In 2018, the American Congress passed a “farm bill” that legalized marijuana seeds. Before that, they were just as federally illegal as any other part of a marijuana plant. But it took until 2022 for officials at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to acknowledge that the 2018 law change made marijuana seed sales federally legal in the USA.

“Marihuana seed that has a delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis meets the definition of ‘hemp’ and thus is not controlled under the CSA,” wrote Terrence Boos, chief of the Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section of the Diversion Control Division of the DEA. This official determination cited the 2018 Farm Bill, and was published by DEA in 2022.

USA growers were hoping these law changes would result in a more transparent marijuana seeds industry, with brick and mortar seed stores, and especially, we hoped for more professionalism in the breeding process. Read our article on the fact that the marijuana seeds industry is mostly scammers, and you’ll see the sad truth.

Even after the DEA’s 20220 statement, it took too long for domestic USA marijuana seed producers to openly start selling and shipping seeds interstate, and even longer for foreign seed companies to feel it was legal to send seeds to the USA.

But just as we get used to marijuana seeds being a legal commodity according to federal law, things look to be changing for the worse. One big problem is state laws can limit who can make, buy, and sell marijuana seeds. Many states still include marijuana seeds in their definition of banned or restricted botanical items.

The most MAGA Republican governors all oppose recreational marijuana legalization and have worked against the rights of marijuana users and growers. The worst of them are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Recall that Sanders used to work for Trump as his media spokesperson.

Due to Trump’s MAGA allies in Congress, the marijuana seeds industry is again endangered. Written and promoted solely by MAGA Republicans from Trump’s party, the “Fiscal Year 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill” currently being crafted by Congressional committees would turn back the clock, reclassifying marijuana seeds as federally illegal parts of marijuana plants that can’t be sold at all.

The proposed law changes state that any marijuana seed that could grow to produce a plant with more than 0.3% THC in any form or combination of forms would be illegal. Because MAGA lawmakers don’t care about or understand cannabinoid science, their changes are likely to criminalize all marijuana seeds, because THC and THCA exceed 0.3% in almost all marijuana plants, even the weakest ditch-weed.

The changes also add new restrictions to hemp-derived cannabinoids, and could be interpreted as outlawing not just seeds that grow into high-potency recreational marijuana, but seeds meant for industrial hemp and CBD production.

Worse yet, the proposed bill authorizes Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Q-Anon, anti-vaccine, anti-science quack who publicly stated his brain was “eaten by a worm,” to have a lot of control over marijuana policy decisions if the law is passed.

Kennedy recently said, for example, that circumcising babies causes autism.

Kennedy, a self-professed former heroin addict, is now anti-marijuana, as is his boss Trump. In fact, earlier this year Kennedy Jr. told Congress that marijuana has “catastrophic impacts.”

This reveals Kennedy’s hypocrisy and dishonesty, given that he openly supported full marijuana decriminalization when he was running against Trump in the Republican primaries in 2024. Kennedy claims he’s been struggling to stay off heroin and other drugs for more than 40 years, and attends daily 12-step sobriety meetings.

Trump chose long-time drug warrior Terrance Cole to lead the DEA—Cole claims marijuana causes children to commit suicide. Cole was allowed to lead the agency despite credible doubts about his integrity and intelligence, along with allegations of past bad actions.

For example, former employees of the DEA during the time Cole had important positions with the agency say that in 2006, Cole was stationed as a special agent in Colombia. An elite group of 10 anti-narcotics Colombian police officers, polygraphed by DEA as part of its vetting process and people who worked directly with Cole, were gunned down by a platoon of Colombian soldiers later convicted of working for drug traffickers.

There were suspicions that Cole leaked the identities of the police officers to the Colombian military and/or drug traffickers.

Five years later, Cole was working in the DEA’s field office in Dallas, supervising a probe into the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. In early 2011, the Zetas carried out a mass murder that was the subject of a yearlong investigation. The investigators stated that this border violence was sparked when DEA officials shared intelligence produced by an agent Cole supervised along with Mexican federal police, who then leaked it to cartels.

Cole was confirmed to be DEA head anyway, and is now also in charge of police in Washington, D.C.

What could be the result of this MAGA push to recriminalize marijuana?

  • Online seed banks would not be able to legally send seeds interstate.
  • In-state seed sellers may not be able to sell seeds within their own state’s borders or anywhere else.
  • Home marijuana growers could be arrested for a federal crime for buying, possessing, or sharing seeds.
  • Seed breeders could be prosecuted for federal crimes.
  • Marijuana genetics libraries could be criminalized, and professional marijuana seed breeding (which rarely happens) would be as well.

I queried the 2026 Farm Bill’s sponsors and was met by dishonesty, evasion, and fascism. One MAGA Republican’s aide told me the bill is an attempt to take down the $25 billion industry that’s based on hemp plants being turned into medicinal and/or intoxicating cannabinoid extracts.

Illinois Republican Representative Mary Miller wants to change the federal definition of hemp as codified in the 2018 Farm Bill. Instead of only measuring total concentration of Delta-9 THC, her changes would redefine hemp by reference to the concentration of “total THC” (including THCA), ban all consumable hemp products with quantifiable amounts of THC and other similar intoxicating cannabinoids, and ban all “synthetic” hemp-derived cannabinoids.

Another virulent MAGA Republican member of Congress is Tom Cole, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Cole told media outlets the Republicans intend to get rid of the “hemp loophole” that allows sale of cannabinoids made from hemp.

Ironically, hemp-derived cannabinoid products should be better regulated, but not by re-criminalizing marijuana seeds. That’s because hemp-derived cannabinoids like Delta-8 and Delta-10 are pathetic fakes that don’t give you anywhere near the same fun effects as provided by Delta-9-THC.

Trump has given mixed messages about marijuana ever since he entered politics in 2015. He claims to have never used any drugs, including alcohol, and has generally opposed marijuana. On the other hand, as his fascistic actions raise concern among his few intelligent libertarian and MAGA supporters, Trump makes noises about possibly allowing the DEA to “reclassify” marijuana on its master list of “controlled substances.”

Marijuana is currently listed as a “Schedule One” drug, grouping it with heroin; this classification includes a stipulation that marijuana has no medical benefits. Joe Biden’s administration had a plan to put marijuana in Schedule Two or Three; that plan would have been carried out if Kamala Harris had won the presidency.

Unfortunately, the few intelligent policy proposals Trump utters never seem to make it into law or official implementation. Trump’s nominee to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, right-wing podcaster Sara Carter, refused to give transparent answers about marijuana during her recent confirmation hearings.

Trump is known for saying things to create a false perception, with no intention of following through on what he says.

“Some people like marijuana. Some people hate it,” Trump said months ago. “Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana because it does bad for the children; it does bad for people that are older than children. But we’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll make a determination over the next, I would say, over the next few weeks, and that determination hopefully will be the right one.”

Of course, that was more than a “few weeks” ago, and nobody smart is counting on Trump to do anything useful to protect the marijuana seeds industry or the recreational marijuana industry from his MAGA colleagues in Congress and state legislatures.

Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts told media he advised Trump’s team to recriminalize marijuana, and cripple the American recreational marijuana industry. Ricketts and Republican Sen. James Lankford said even if marijuana is rescheduled, they will pass laws against the industry.

Ironically, as Trump imitates Adolf Hitler and America resembles Germany, 1939, the German government legalized home growing of marijuana in April, 2024, and also legalized purchase of marijuana seeds from other European Union countries.

But according to Tony Thetiger, spokesperson for legendary Dutch marijuana seeds company Dutch Passion, a Dutch Passion courier headed to Dusseldorf, Germany in August 2025 with 20,000 marijuana seeds was intercepted, and the government seized the entire shipment.

Fortunately, the local prosecutor and judicial counsel ruled the seizure illegal, and the seeds were returned to Dutch Passion. I wonder if honoring the rule of law would happen like that now in America in a similar situation.

The most actionable advice I can give you is if you believe there are any American marijuana seed sellers who have strains you want, order them soon. And hey, if you’re high and want to laugh a lot, watch this…