Once upon a time—by which I mean about five years ago—Connecticut’s hemp industry was the golden child of the cannabis world. Farmers were told this was the crop of the future, a green gold rush promising fat stacks of cash for anyone willing to trade their tomatoes for THC-adjacent buds. The state rolled out licenses like candy, and the land blossomed with high hopes and hemp fields. Then, like an overzealous toker packing more than they could toke, the whole thing came crashing down in spectacular, slow-motion carnage.
Let’s talk numbers. In 2019, Connecticut had 82 hemp cultivators—farmers jumping headfirst into the market, riding the CBD wave straight to prosperity. The next year, that number hit triple digits. Fast forward to now, and only eight hemp growers remain. That’s not a decline; that’s a goddamn extinction event.
So what happened? A mix of bad luck, bad timing, and the usual bureaucratic foot-shooting. First, the feds removed CBD from the list of controlled substances, making it fair game for every gas station and bodega from here to Timbuktu. What was once a rare and expensive elixir turned into cheap, overstocked snake oil overnight. Then, Connecticut legalized recreational weed, and suddenly, hemp was the awkward stepbrother nobody wanted to talk about. If you had to choose between growing hemp for pennies or THC for dollars, which would you pick? Exactly.
But here’s the kicker—the federal government still insists that hemp products can only contain 0.3% THC or less. Cross that threshold, even by a hair, and congratulations, you’re now in possession of an illegal drug. Farmers had entire crops torched for testing just slightly too strong. Imagine growing an entire field of lettuce only to have the government burn it down because the leaves were too crisp. That’s the kind of absurdity hemp farmers were dealing with.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the FDA, which still hasn’t figured out how to regulate CBD in food and drink. That uncertainty made major retailers skittish, leaving farmers and producers drowning in unsold product. Oversupply, under-regulation, and an industry caught between cannabis and a hard place—it’s a brutal trifecta.
So where does that leave us? Well, Connecticut’s hemp scene is now a graveyard of broken dreams and unpaid loans. The farmers who survived did so by pivoting to fiber hemp or niche wellness products. The rest? They’re licking their wounds.
The lesson here is the same one history keeps trying to teach us: when the government tells you something is the future, proceed with extreme skepticism. The Green Rush was real, but for most of Connecticut’s hemp farmers, it ended in red ink and empty fields.
Keep it weird,
