By Heidi Lawrence

Six years ago, my daughter, by most metrics, was a typical overachieving teenager. She was a straight-A, pre-professional ballet dancer. She loved school and art, had lots of friends, and above all else, she was kind, funny and driven.

Unfortunately, her life was derailed upon her discovery and usage of THC. I watched how exposure to THC over time can end up sending a teenager into a psychotic episode. I know because I watched it happen to my daughter, over and over again for several years. It nearly destroyed our family.

Now, at 19 years old, Ella struggles with daily functioning, having abandoned her hopes of a college education, pursuing ballet and art, along with losing most childhood friendships. I don’t say this to fear-monger, but to bring awareness to the dangers of what high-potency THC does to developing brains. Thankfully, Congress voted to close the federal hemp loophole last year. Now, as industry lobbyists press Congress to reopen the hemp loophole, I want to make it clear what’s at stake and why it’s so important it remain closed.

In 2018, Congress legalized industrial hemp production in order to help support our nation’s agricultural industry. They saw it as a way to help create a new economic avenue for farmers across the country. But companies began taking advantage of a loophole in the law, manufacturing intoxicating products with synthetic THC they could say was “hemp-derived” and sell with no regulation.

My family’s experience with this compound has driven me to learn far more about the dangers of THC than any parent should ever have to know. Research shows these hemp products aren’t just littered with dangerous components like pesticides and synthetic chemicals, but are also sold with inaccurate labels and require no age verification.

Worst of all, these products are specifically tailor made to prey on children, as they did on mine. These companies have chosen to deliberately market hemp products as everyday snacks that catch the eye of teenagers and young adults, following the same playbook as big tobacco. This means any child can simply walk into a gas station, buy any hemp product of their choosing, and walk out the door, without any questions asked due to a lack of restrictions. This has led to a significant number of children consuming THC products without even being aware. According to the Food and Drug Administration, 83% of unintentional edible THC cases that required medical care were children.

Colorado officials banned these dangerous products and Congress rightfully closed the hemp loophole last November. This was a necessary decision that will help save lives. However, the industry is already fighting to reopen it. They will tell you it’s about protecting farmers or economic opportunity, but they’ll leave out the part about the children who’ve ended up in emergency rooms or in psychiatric hospitals or the families who’ve been torn apart. Instead of even considering reopening the hemp loophole, Congress should instead be considering what the next best course of action is for protecting children from dangerous hemp products.

The answer is simple.

When I think about other families, other 13-year-olds who might be where Ella was six years ago, I think about what we owe them. We owe them every protection we can provide, systems that treat their developing brains as more important than someone’s profit margin, and adults who will say no to an industry that has shown, over and over again, it will exploit children if we let it.

Congress got this right when they closed the hemp loophole. Our members of Congress should ask themselves a simple question: What matters more — the profits of an industry that targets children, or the children themselves?

For Ella, and for every child like her, I hope they choose the children.

Heidi Lawrence advocates for substance use disorder (SUD) education; facilitates Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) classes and serves on the advisory council for Signal Behavioral Health Network. Lawrence also is a nonprofit development professional, with more than 15 years of experience serving organizations in Boulder County.