About 50 hemp advocates stood in front of the office, urging lawmakers to reconsider language in the bill that reopened the government that would outlaw hemp products containing more than .4 milligrams of total THC — regulations backed by McConnell.
Annie Rouse, CEO of Kentucky hemp manufacturer CannaBuzz, said the new threshold would effectively do away with the large majority of non-intoxicating hemp products on the shelves.
"It is astronomically low," she said. "It's so low that it's almost intentionally written so that there will be no market."
Compare that to what McConnell has said about the legislation, which he claims closes loopholes that allow for the creation of enhanced and synthetic intoxicating products, which are marketed and made easily available to young people.
"It will keep these dangerous products out of the hands of children, while preserving the hemp industry for farmers," the senator argued.
While speakers at Friday's gathering acknowledged there are improvements that need to be made in the still-evolving industry, they described that last promise from McConnell as "manifestly untrue."
"The industry does need to be cleaned up. There are better guardrails that need to be implemented," Rouse said. "We can fix those problems and if they had listened to us from the beginning we could have significantly better solutions that they could have implemented now."
The new legislation doesn't take effect for another year. In that time, lawmakers in both the U.S. House and Senate plan to introduce bills striking what hemp advocates say is a better regulatory balance.
Asked about the odds on new reforms, Rouse's reaction is mixed.
"I'm optimistic in what we can do in the Kentucky legislature. I am less optimistic over DC, and not necessarily because of hemp, but because of the political climate that exists today."
Sen. Rand Paul has used increasingly strong terms to describe the effect he sees new tighter restrictions having on the hemp industry, from cutting a "lifeline" for farmers to "prohibition."
Gov. Andy Beshear said he believes a middle ground can be reached.
"We should have appropriate safety regulations around it, but we should make those regulations here in Kentucky, talking to the industry and making sure that we get that balance right," the Democrat said Thursday.