What is HLDF?

The Hemp Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization organized to raise funds for legal actions useful to protect and support the United States hemp industry by challenging statutes, regulations, or other legal actions that endanger the legal hemp industry guaranteed by the 2018 Farm Bill. Legal actions may include challenges to unlawful exercises of government authority or government acts that violate the plain language and purpose of federal and state hemp laws.

HLDF serves to provide cost efficient management for the legal defense of the hemp industry. Consequently, HLDF embraces transparency to its donors and the clients directly served by any legal efforts it funds.

What legal actions will HLDF fund?

HLDF will help challenge laws or regulations that are damaging to the United States hemp industry and legally unsound. Application to the fund is approved by the fund’s board, depending on the level of assistance sought and purpose of the legal action. All requests for money from the HLDF will be weighed with special consideration for activities that will affect the most far-reaching and positive outcomes.

Currently, all HLDF funds will go towards supporting Hemp Industries Association and RE Botanicals, Inc v Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), challenging the DEA’s interim final rule entitled “Implementation of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018”. Donations to the link above will go toward paying the litigation costs of this important effort to protect the US hemp industry.

How else will HLDF funds be spent?

All current funds will be spent on Hemp Industries Association and RE Botanicals, Inc v Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),with concurrent actions filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A small portion of funds raised will be spend on administrative costs (legal, accounting, and communication).

Hemp Industries Association & RE Botanicals Inc v DEA

The hemp industry challenges the DEA’s interim final rule entitled “Implementation of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018” (the IFR).

On September 18, 2020 Hemp Industries Association and RE Botanicals, Inc v Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) filed a petition for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to challenge the DEA’s interim final rule entitled “Implementation of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018”. The case asks the court to review the IFR and argues that the IFR is unlawful because it exceeds the DEA's legal authority and violates the 2018 Farm Bill. The petitioners also argue that acting DEA administrator Timothy Shea, who is individually named as a respondent along with the agency, issued the interim final rule without observing procedures required by law.

On October 13, 2020, a concurrent action for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint alleges the DEA is unlawfully attempting to regulate certain products derived from lawful hemp by misinterpreting the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the 2018 Farm Bill. Specifically, the DEA classifies intermediary hemp material (IHM) and waste hemp material (WHM), two necessary and inevitable byproducts of hemp processing, as Schedule I controlled substances. The plaintiffs argue that Congress deliberately removed such commercial hemp activity from the DEA's jurisdiction when it legalized hemp production, including hemp processing, via the 2018 Farm Bill. Plaintiffs seek an injunction (1) enjoining the DEA from enforcing the CSA as to IHM and WHM and from classifying such materials as Schedule I substances, and (2) preventing the DEA from promulgating any rules relating to the production of hemp.

Donations to the fund will go toward litigation costs of this important effort to protect the US hemp industry.