Minnesota’s cannabis regulators say they have a plan to fill a gap in state law that could be letting some hemp retailers sell marijuana flower without consequence.
Charlene Briner, the interim director of the new Office of Cannabis Management, said Thursday that she is working with other agencies to provide a temporary method to inspect and test raw cannabis flower to make sure it does not violate current law.
She said the agency will look into using inspectors from the Office of Medical Cannabis and the Department of Agriculture to exercise the Office of Cannabis Management’s authority to stop the sale of cannabis flower that is illegal marijuana masquerading as legal hemp.
“OCM is evaluating how to leverage existing enforcement capacity at the Office of Medical Cannabis to act on OCM’s behalf and how we can develop capacity to test raw cannabis flower,” Briner said.
“We’ll be sharing more about those plans as we put them in place,” she said.
To be legal to sell now, hemp flower must contain only 0.3 percent delta-9 THC or less. Such hemp plants do not have enough THC to be intoxicating when eaten or smoked. But by processing the hemp for edibles and beverages, the THC content can be enhanced to produce an intoxicating effect.
Some hemp retailers and smoke shops have been selling raw cannabis flower that might or might not exceed those legal limits. Hemp inspectors have not acted against such sales—or even to test the flower—because while the Office of Medical Cannabis regulates hemp sales, the law doesn’t give it any authority over unprocessed flower.
The loophole became public late last year when former Office of Medical Cannabis director Chris Tholkes discussed it on the national podcast Weed Wonks. She said her inspectors have seen sales of raw cannabis flower that the stores claim is legal hemp but that the inspectors suspect is not.
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