After nine hours of debate over competing proposals to ban intoxicating hemp products, the Missouri Senate finally approved a House bill Tuesday night that would align state law with a federal ban set to take effect in November.
It also includes provisions to protect marijuana consumer privacy and cannabis workers’ right to organize.
It now heads back to the House, which can either ask for a conference to work out differences with the Senate or send it to the governor.
The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon, would prohibit hemp products from containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container, which is among the limits included in a provision in the federal spending bill Congress approved last year.
Even if Congress reverses course and decides to allow the sale of these products, Hinman’s bill would only permit them to be sold in Missouri’s licensed marijuana dispensaries. And if Congress chooses to delay the ban for a couple years, Missouri would still ban all products, except for intoxicating beverages.
“I had just a good opportunity over in the Senate to work with several of the senators to get some of the things that they wanted to get on there that I think actually benefit the bill,” Hinman told The Independent Wednesday morning. “So I’m very happy with the things that were done last night and look forward to bringing that to the House tomorrow.”
Resistance to the bill came from Republican senators who expressed concern that the hemp industry members weren’t included in the final negotiations that took place for more than 12 hours Tuesday.
And Democratic state Sen. Karla May of St. Louis argued Missouri would be taking a more restrictive approach than the federal government because the proposals would deem the intoxicating hemp products as “marijuana.”
“They claim they’re mirroring the federal regulation,” May said during the debate Tuesday. “There’s some things in there that’s going far beyond the federal regulation, such as…hemp-derived cannabinoids will be put under the marijuana umbrella and have to be sold in dispensaries.”
May successfully led a nearly seven-hour filibuster on the first bill brought for discussion, sponsored by Republican state Sen. David Gregory, which would have made the ban effective as soon as the governor signed it.
“We spent pretty much from 11 a.m. until really 9 p.m. trying to figure out where we wanted to go, trying different things,” Hinman said, regarding Gregory’s bill. “We couldn’t get everyone really to agree, and so the senator [Gregory] suggested, ‘Let’s just go back to Hinman’s bill and go with that.’”
In an unusual move, the senators decided to reconvene the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee at about 10 p.m. The same committee had decided not to vote on Hinman’s bill earlier that day, saying Hinman needed to reach a resolution with the hemp industry.
There was no public notice of the fiscal oversight committee’s evening meeting, which ended when senators voted to move the bill forward and allowed the full Senate to take it up for debate.
An amendment was approved to keep dispensaries from collecting marijuana consumers’ information unless they “opted in,” Hinman said, and another ensured all cannabis workers can unionize and shouldn’t be considered “agricultural workers” who aren’t protected under federal law. A group of workers in St. Louis have been battling this point since 2023.
Hellbound and Down 