Viola Founder: Hemp Ban Confusion Is Crushing Compliant Companies

August 29, 2026

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Al Harrington has been telling anyone who'll listen that the hardest part of running a hemp or cannabis company right now isn't taxes, or competition, or even enforcement. It's not knowing what the rules will be six months from now. The Viola co-founder and Tempters beverage founder says regulatory indecision at the federal level is squeezing operators who are actually trying to follow the rules, while less scrupulous players just keep selling and hope nobody notices the difference.

Harrington doesn't think Congress will actually pull the trigger on a full federal hemp ban. But he's building his companies as if it might happen anyway, because betting your business on a guess about what lawmakers will do next is a bad way to run a company. The stakes are real: a hemp industry estimated at $28 billion is staring down either a strict THC potency cap or outright prohibition once a new federal hemp definition takes effect on November 12, 2026.

Who Is Al Harrington and Why His Warning Carries Weight

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Harrington's name carries weight in this conversation because he's built businesses on both sides of the cannabis and hemp divide. He co-founded Viola with Allen Iverson back in 2011, and the brand initially made its name in cannabis concentrates, the kind of product that requires a state-licensed cannabis market to sell legally. That's a very different regulatory world than hemp, which since 2018 has operated under a separate federal framework that allowed derivative products to slip into gas stations and grocery stores nationwide.

As consumer demand shifted toward more approachable formats, Harrington expanded into hemp-derived THC beverages through Tempters, chasing the same trend that's pulled a lot of cannabis operators toward canned drinks. A July 2025 press release tied a Tempters beverage partnership directly to Viola's broader push into hemp-derived THC drinks, signaling that Harrington sees beverages, not flower or concentrates, as where a lot of future growth sits.

His recent comments came in an MJBizDaily interview, part of the outlet's ongoing series profiling major figures in the THC industry. That platform matters because Harrington isn't some fringe voice complaining online. He's someone with licensed cannabis operations, a hemp beverage brand, and direct exposure to exactly the regulatory whiplash he's describing. When he says indecision is crushing compliant companies, he's speaking from the position of someone who has to make real capital and inventory decisions based on rules that keep shifting under his feet.

The Federal Hemp Ban That Takes Effect November 2026

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The ban Harrington is bracing for stems from language buried inside the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026, known in shorthand as H.R. 5371 or Public Law 119-37. President Trump signed it on November 12, 2025, and it did something the hemp industry had feared since the 2018 Farm Bill first opened this door: it redefined hemp itself.

The old rule measured legality by delta-9 THC content alone, capped at 0.3% on a dry-weight basis. That measurement created the loophole that let THCA flower, delta-8 vapes, and hemp-derived beverages proliferate, because manufacturers could formulate around delta-9 specifically. The new definition closes that loophole by shifting to total THC, which captures THCA, delta-8, and other cannabinoids that convert to psychoactive compounds, and it pairs that with a hard cap of 0.4 milligrams per container.

That threshold is so low it would effectively outlaw most of the psychoactive hemp-derived products currently sitting on convenience store shelves and dispensary counters, once the provision takes effect on November 12, 2026. Harrington says he doesn't actually expect Congress to let full prohibition happen. But given how much capital and inventory he has riding on hemp beverages, he's preparing his operations for the worst case regardless. As he put it, the constant back-and-forth in Washington makes it nearly impossible to run companies with any real planning horizon.

A Potency Cap or a Total Shutdown: Two Very Different Outcomes

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There are two very different roads this could take, and Harrington has been clear about which one actually worries him. The milder outcome would see Congress capping THC beverages at somewhere around 3 to 5 milligrams per serving rather than banning the category outright. That's a real haircut for products currently sold at 5, 10, or even higher milligram doses per can, but it's a business model, not a business killer.

Harrington has said a national cap wouldn't be unfamiliar territory for him. Running cannabis operations across multiple states already means dealing with wildly different potency limits depending on jurisdiction, so adapting formulations to a federal number is just another version of a problem he's solved before. What he frames as the actual existential threat is full national prohibition, the scenario where hemp-derived THC products simply can't be sold anywhere, regardless of dose.

The scale of what's at risk gives that fear some teeth. The hemp industry is commonly pegged at roughly $28 billion, spanning beverages, gummies, tinctures, and smokable hemp flower sold well outside the licensed cannabis dispensary system. A prohibition scenario doesn't just dent that market, it potentially clears shelves overnight across thousands of retail locations that never needed a cannabis license to begin with.

Complicating things further, some states aren't waiting on Congress. A handful are pushing their own THC limits independent of federal action, meaning operators like Harrington already have to track a patchwork of state rules on top of whatever eventually comes out of Washington.

Congress Is Trying to Undo Its Own Ban

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Congress created this mess with the November 2025 appropriations rider, and now several members are scrambling to walk it back, with no consensus on how. Rep. Nancy Mace introduced HR 6209, the American Hemp Protection Act, on November 20, 2025, just eight days after the ban provision was signed into law. Her bill would strike the ban provision entirely, essentially rewinding the clock to the pre-2025 hemp definition.

Rep. Jim Baird took a different approach with HR 7024, the Hemp Planting Predictability Act, filed January 13, 2026. Rather than repealing the new definition, it would delay implementation to November 2028, buying the industry two more years to adapt or lobby for something better. A Senate companion, S. 3686, has drawn backing from Amy Klobuchar, Rand Paul, and Jeff Merkley, an unusual bipartisan lineup that signals real appetite for a delay even if a full repeal can't get traction.

Then Rep. Andy Barr introduced yet another attempt, the Lawful Hemp Protection Act, on May 28, 2026, adding a third distinct legislative fix competing for attention. Meanwhile, the House Agriculture Committee advanced the 2026 Farm Bill by a 34-17 vote on March 5, 2026, without touching the hemp ban question at all, leaving the underlying conflict completely unresolved even as the broader farm policy bill moves forward.

This is precisely the kind of patchwork Harrington is describing when he talks about indecision hurting compliant operators. Three competing bills, no clear front-runner, and a Farm Bill that sidesteps the issue entirely add up to an industry that has no idea which version of the rules it should be planning around.

Texas Shows What Selective Enforcement Looks Like

If anyone wants a preview of what selective, state-level enforcement looks like ahead of the federal deadline, Texas already provided one. On July 31, 2026, the state moved against delta-8, delta-10, THCP, and similar hemp-derived isomers, acting on the Texas Supreme Court's ruling in DSHS v. Sky Marketing Corp., which cleared the way for the state's health department to restrict those products.

Notably, the crackdown didn't touch everything hemp-related. Hemp-derived delta-9 beverages formulated under the 0.3% dry-weight threshold were specifically exempted, meaning canned THC drinks kept selling in Texas even as isomer-based vapes and edibles got pulled. That split outcome is a real-world example of exactly what Harrington has been warning about: states carving out their own distinctions between product categories well before the federal definition even takes effect.

For a beverage brand like Tempters, the practical effect is that the compliance map keeps shifting underneath the business even in states where the federal ban isn't yet in play. A product category that's fine in Texas today could be treated completely differently in another state next month, and neither necessarily lines up with whatever Congress eventually settles on nationally. Operators can't just watch Washington, they have to watch state capitals too, often simultaneously, with rulings and enforcement actions arriving faster than legislation can respond to them.

Harrington's bet, if you boil it down, is that lobbying pressure and bipartisan bills like Baird's delay and Mace's repeal will blunt the harshest version of this outcome before November 2026 arrives. He's not predicting doom. But he's still hedging his business against total prohibition, because betting a company's survival on Congress moving quickly and coherently isn't a strategy, it's a hope.

The bigger lesson here extends past Harrington's own companies. Regulatory uncertainty itself functions as a cost, even when the worst-case scenario never materializes. Compliant operators end up spending money, time, and attention preparing for outcomes that competing bills, court rulings, and appropriations riders may ultimately steer around entirely. That's money and attention that could otherwise go toward product development, hiring, or market expansion.

For anyone in the hemp or THC beverage space, or anyone shopping in it, the practical takeaway is to keep a close eye on your own state's rules rather than assuming a national headline settles anything locally. Between competing federal bills, a Farm Bill that skipped the issue, and states like Texas making their own carve-outs, this landscape is changing month to month. Confirm current law before making any business or purchasing decisions, and don't assume today's rule holds past the next legislative session.