A second proposal backed by Missouri’s hemp industry to regulate products like hemp-THC seltzers and edibles was defeated in a House committee Thursday morning, after the hemp-beverage distributor who helped draft the bill emailed committee members that morning asking them to kill it.
The 5-7 vote in the House General Laws committee came after state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon (R), the bill sponsor, spent hours last week trying to come up with a compromise among the splintered hemp industry leaders on regulations.
The same committee voted down a bill backed by the Missouri Hemp Trade Association last week in a 1-13 vote.
After that defeat, Hinman incorporated a number of the hemp association’s requests into an amended version of his bill, which he presented Thursday. State Rep. Ben Keathley (R) of Chesterfield, the chair of the committee, applauded Hinman’s attempt to bring the hemp leaders together.
“A lot of interests are working against each other in this bill, and it’s very difficult to come up with something that everyone’s going to be happy with,” Keathley said. “I think the bill sponsor put together a good package that allows us to do the most important thing of protecting Missouri children.”
Hinman’s amended bill addressed some of the concerns committee members had about costs of testing and increased the sales tax on these products to be the same as marijuana products, 6 percent. The bill also addressed concerns by hemp companies, he said, by allowing small-scale beverage manufacturers to self distribute and increased the maximum amount of THC per container.
But the fatal flaw that bill drafter Steven Busch, owner of Krey Distributing, could not support was allowing the continued sale of THC-A flower, which looks and acts very similar to marijuana buds.
Busch said he’s had discussions with Hinman previously about his concerns that THC-A is an unstable compound of the cannabis plant that becomes intoxicating when heated. And that process can happen when it sits on the shelf too long, he told committee members in emails and text messages Thursday morning.
Hinman told the committee he spoke with several industry experts who advised him the instability could be addressed by proper packaging requirements, which the bill included.
Earlier this week, Busch had told Hinman, whom he says he still highly respects, that he was pulling his support for the bill.
“It would really jeopardize the whole industry if they keep trying to push THC-A as hemp,” Busch told The Independent in an interview Thursday. “If somebody wants a product like that, they can very easily get it at a dispensary and that’s where it should be obtained.”
Hellbound and Down 