In a commercial kitchen outside Raleigh, North Carolina, Nicholas Hohns spreads a blue-green goo into a gridded mold, producing one of his company's signature products: potent THC gummies made with delta-9, the primary intoxicating compound found in marijuana. It is a business he may soon be forced to give up.

America's multibillion-dollar market for impairing hemp products — from THC seltzers stocked at some Target stores to smokable cannabis flower, and distinct from the regulated legal marijuana industry — faces potential elimination after Congress voted to close the federal loophole that allowed it to flourish. Industry advocates, along with some lawmakers, are now fighting to save it.

A short-term government funding bill signed by President Donald Trump last month pushed back the effective date of the "hemp THC ban" from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, giving Congress more time to consider regulating the products rather than banning them outright. For an industry whose products sit on gas station counters and Target shelves alike, the reprieve sets up a December decision point: federal regulation or elimination.

"It's such a weird spot to be in," Hohns said. "You worked 100 hours a week for the past four years, and, yeah, you made some money. But now you might have nothing to show for it."

How the loophole opened

Marijuana and hemp come from the same plant: cannabis. Marijuana is cultivated to carry high levels of THC in its flowers, while low-THC hemp has historically been grown for its sturdy fibers, food and wellness products. "Rope, not dope" was long the motto of the farmers who backed hemp legalization.

To give farmers a new cash crop, Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell successfully pushed to legalize industrial hemp in the 2018 farm bill. But the way that law defined hemp — as containing less than 0.3% of a specific type of THC, delta-9, by weight — opened a huge loophole. Beverages and snacks could meet that threshold while still packing more than enough THC to get people high.

Vape oil, gummy candies, chips, sodas and other unregulated, untested products laden with hemp-derived THC spread across the country, appearing in gas stations and convenience stores where they were available even to teenagers. Some businesses went further, selling marijuana outright on the theory that raw cannabis contains THC in the form of THC-A, which converts into impairing delta-9 only when heated or burned. Those products evaded state prohibitions on recreational weed or undercut heavily taxed, regulated cannabis markets where they exist.

Dozens of states responded by regulating or banning impairing hemp products. McConnell ultimately closed the loophole late last year, inserting a hemp THC ban into the measure that ended the longest government shutdown in history. The ban caps THC in hemp products at 0.4 milligrams per container and would not take effect for a year.

Billions in revenue at stake

The ban "threatens to reduce retail revenues by $28.3 billion, displacing 225,000 jobs and reducing state sales tax potential by $2.1 billion," according to a report last month from Whitney Economics, which studies the market. Those figures explain why the fight has drawn in players well beyond hemp farms: at stake is not a tweak to the rules, but whether impairing hemp products remain a legal category at all.

The industry's survival plan centers on restricting impairing products to people 21 and older, limiting how much THC can be packaged at once, and banning imported cannabis compounds.

Eric Zipperle and Jim Higdon, owners of Kentucky's Cornbread Hemp, said they are prepared to cap their products at 5 milligrams if that is what it takes to win support from lawmakers. The 0.4-milligram limit, however, would destroy their business. "If it goes through in December, this place is toast — it's gone," Zipperle said. The company employs 105 people, sells beverages in 18 states and expects to bring in $65 million this year.

Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the industry group U.S. Hemp Roundtable, said the 0.4-milligram cap is so low that it would ban even some non-impairing CBD products, such as topical lotions.

Entrepreneurs brace for the worst

Hohns, who runs Deutermann Farms in Clayton, North Carolina, entered the hemp trade after losing his job as a personal trainer during the COVID-19 pandemic. North Carolina has legalized neither medical nor recreational marijuana, yet many of the edibles he makes are more potent than what is available in states that have.

"When I started seeing THC edibles being sold … I was like, I got 18 months to two years to make money in this industry," he said. "No way is the government just going to sit here and let us do this when this was supposed to be for fiber, plastics, building materials, rope."

That was more than four years ago. Expecting a crackdown, Hohns kept his capital investments minimal and has considered pivoting to other products, such as creatine gummies, if he has to exit the hemp THC business.

The strain has been heavier elsewhere. Drinkin' Buds, a cannabis beverage company in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has mothballed production, and co-founder Matt Swanson took himself off the payroll on Thursday. "There's just so much uncertainty," Swanson said. "I'm actively looking for employment."

Unlikely allies, firm opponents

Among the hemp industry's defenders are alcohol retailers, including Total Wine & More, whose cannabis seltzer sales have helped offset falling alcohol sales.

Opponents argue the products are dangerous. "I have sympathy for people losing their jobs, but I also have sympathy for the many, many more people whose lives are affected by this," said Kevin Sabet, CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

The regulated legal marijuana industry, which views hemp THC as unfair competition, also supports the ban. Cory Harris, a lobbyist for state-legal cannabis operators, suggested the dire predictions about the ban's effects are overstated. While it would end interstate sales of products like THC seltzers and gummies, he said, some could find a home in legal in-state markets: THC drinks could be sold at stores in the states where they were produced, and states like North Carolina could adopt legal hemp programs.

"If you go from having virtually no rules to suddenly having an awful lot of rules, that's a buzzkill," Harris said. "Welcome to our world. But if you establish your whole business within a legally questionable loophole, that's just sort of the risk you take."

With the Dec. 11 deadline approaching, the question before Congress is whether that regulatory alternative — age limits, packaging caps and an import ban — can win enough support to replace the ban before it takes effect.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.