Hemp Industries Association v. Drug Enforcement Administration, often shortened to HIA v. DEA, refers to two lawsuits concerning the legality of cannabis extracts and other products from the hemp plant that have very low or nonexistent natural THC levels, including CBD oil, in the United States.
In the 2004 case the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals established that the DEA had made illegal regulations intended to implement laws creating separate legal regimes for marijuana and THC.
[1] Specifically, the DEA chose to ban trade parts of the hemp plant legally exempted from the definition of "marihuana" by using THC related legislation.
[1] In 2018 Hemp Industries Association alleged the DEA for created and was enforcing a similar regulation to the one that the ninth circuit court of appeals struck down in 2004.
It started "Because [of] recent public inquiries that DEA has received following the publication of the Final Rule suggest[ing] there may be some misunderstanding about the source of cannabinoids in the cannabis plant", the DEA issued a clarification of the code which stated it did not apply to products derived from "parts of the cannabis plant excluded from the CSA definition of marijuana, such as the flowering tops, resin, and leaves".