Tag: hemp

Kansas Lawmakers Consider Proposal To Jail Farmers Who Grow Hemp With Too Much THC

State law enforcement, local prosecutors and a lobbyist convinced legalization of medical marijuana posed the greatest threat to quality of life in Kansas tried to quietly squeeze into a bill lowering fees on industrial hemp producers an amendment that could send wayward farmers to prison for years.

The threshold between freedom and incarceration under the amendment advocated by the executive director of Stand Up for Kansas, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association would be a laboratory test measuring whether a hemp product had a THC content greater than 1 percent. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state of Kansas allow harvesting, processing and marketing of hemp with less than 0.3 percent THC.

“I just need help understanding who are we going after? I hope it’s not our industrial hemp producers,” said Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Sedgwick Republican and farmer. “Is there some place we can look to find out how much this is being abused? I’m trying to understand where all the abuse is at.”

Stand Up for Kansas leader Katie Whisman said she couldn’t document the threat posed by crooked hemp farmers. The former Kansas Bureau of Investigation administrator did say establishment of industrial hemp as a row crop in Kansas created “a lot of confusion for law enforcement” personnel. She said one source of frustration was the challenge of differentiating between legal hemp and illegal marijuana.

“They look the same,” she said. “They smell the same. Is that hemp? Is that marijuana? How do we enforce that?”

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Texas puts Delta-8 THC products in state lawmakers’ crosshairs

The salad days of gas station weed in Texas may be coming to an end.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is including a ban on Delta-8 and Delta-9 products in his list of goals for the 2025 Texas legislative session, putting the future of the popular and controversial hemp products in jeopardy.

In his 2024 Interim Legislative Charges prospectus, Patrick outlined his desire for lawmakers to “examine the sale of intoxicating hemp products in Texas.” The document also calls for legislators to “make recommendations to further regulate the sale of these products, and suggest legislation to stop retailers who market these products to children.”

Both Delta-8 and Delta-9 are THC molecules capable of producing an intoxicating effect, but Delta-8 occurs naturally in marijuana in much smaller quantities. Delta-8 first hit Texas shelves after a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp but did not specify what form of THC would be regulated. Since then, Delta-9 products have also emerged in low-THC edible forms.

Six years later and two years after Texas began allowing hemp plants in Texan soil, over 7,000 businesses in Texas operate retail hemp licenses, and hundreds more possess the license to manufacture and market their own hemp products. Meanwhile, traditional marijuana is still only legal medically, and its use is heavily regulated. The so-called grey markets have drawn ire from lawmakers concerned that the products, which are not regulated by the FDA, are too easily accessible to minors.

The Texas Department of State Health Services first moved to ban Delta-8 in 2021, but an injunction has halted the prohibition, leaving Delta-8 on the market for now.The Lieutenant Governor’s language in legislative charges does not appear to leave room for a possible middle ground between an unregulated cannabinoid free-for-all and outright ban. 

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Missouri Proposal Would Ban Most Delta-8 THC Drinks And Edibles Under State Law

Hemp is often known for being the part of the cannabis plant that doesn’t get people high.

It’s full of CBD, a nonpyschoactive cannabinoid that helps people relax and often found in massage oils and sleep aids.

But much has changed since hemp was taken off the controlled substance list in 2018 by the last U.S. Agriculture Improvement Act, more commonly known as the farm bill.

Now state regulators can barely keep up with the constantly evolving ways that people have found to make intoxicating products from hemp—largely through a chemical process of converting CBD to THC. The market for things like delta-8 drinks and edibles is one of the fastest growing markets in the country.

The fact that it is legal federally was the basis for St. Louis Democratic Sen. Karla May’s opposition to a bill sponsored by state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance.

“The feds are not stopping the sale of this product,” May said, during a Senate floor debate last week. “What you’re saying is we need to shut down all the businesses that are currently selling this product and making revenue from this product, and then transfer them to all of the people that have gotten marijuana licenses.”

While May was the most vocal critic in the Senate last week, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have pushed back on the idea of forcing the hemp industry under the umbrella of DHSS, saying that would allow the “marijuana monopoly” to take over this market given the limited number of licenses for dispensaries available.

After voters passed a constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana in 2018, competition for licenses became fierce when the state capped the number of applications it would approve—initially issuing 338 licenses to sell, grow and process marijuana.

Widespread reports of irregularities in how applications were scored fueled criticism of the industry and accusations that insiders were building a monopoly. That criticism spilled into the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in 2022, though the proposal still won voter approval.

Some applicants who didn’t land medical marijuana licenses turned to producing hemp-derived THC products.

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Nebraska Lawmakers Approve 100% Tax Rate For CBD And Hemp Products To Help Offset Property Taxes

A Nebraska legislative committee has given preliminary approval to a bill that would tax hemp and CBD products in the state at a whopping 100 percent rate.

The cannabis product tax hike is part of legislation designed to bring in more money to state coffers to offset property tax bills, according to an outline of the plan from Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R), the legislation’s sponsor, that was posted by a Nebraska Public Media reporter.

The legislature’s Revenue Committee advanced the underlying measure, LB 388, on a 7–0 vote on Thursday, according to a report in the Nebraska Examiner. The state’s full unicameral legislature could take up the bill as soon as Tuesday.

“We are going to tax hemp and CBD at 100%,” Linehan’s document says, adding that, along with other reforms—including removing sales tax exemptions on soda, candy, pet services, advertising revenue over $1 billion and lottery tickets—the change is estimated to bring in $182 million in new revenue for the state.

The changes are not currently reflected in the bill’s language as available online, nor has any relevant amendment been posted to the bill page. Linehan, who also chairs the panel that approved the measure this week, did not immediately respond to emailed questions from Marijuana Moment.

Adam Morfeld, a former Nebraska state senator who co-chairs the advocacy group Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, reacted to the proposal with shock.

“The Legislature is going to tax hemp and CBD at 100 percent!??” he posted on social media.

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Colorado Bill Would Force Social Media Platforms To Ban Users Who ‘Promote’ Marijuana, Psychedelics And Hemp Products

A center-right think tank is raising alarm about a Colorado bill that it says would make it illegal to talk positively about marijuana online. The prohibition would also apply to many hemp products as well as some federally legal pharmaceuticals.

Among other provisions, SB24-158—a broad proposal around internet age verification and content policies—would require social media platforms to immediately remove any user “who promotes, sells, or advertises an illicit substance.”

The bill’s definition of illicit substance includes not only illegal drugs but also many that are legal and regulated in Colorado. It pertains to any controlled substance under state law, including schedules I through V under state law.  That means the bill would affect state-legal marijuana, certain psychedelics—which voters legalized through a 2022 ballot measure—and even some over-the-counter cough syrups that contain small amounts of codeine.

Beyond scheduled drugs, the bill specifies that its restrictions also apply to certain hemp products with more than 1.25 milligrams THC or a CBD-to-THC ratio of less than 20 to 1 and most other hemp-containing products intended for human consumption.

If enacted onto law, companies would also need to publish “a statement that the use of the social media platform for the promotion, sale, or advertisement of any illicit substance…is prohibited.”

The R Street Institute says the restriction would impact not only cannabis companies but also any individual who posts positively about marijuana.

“Basically, the Colorado Legislature is trying to force social media companies to ban the promotion of marijuana,” the group’s social media director, Shoshanna Weissman, wrote in a new article. “And because what constitutes ‘promotion’ remains undefined, the bill would likely force platforms to remove all pro-marijuana free speech in a state where recreational use is legal.”

Not only is the ambiguity of “promotion” an issue, but the bill’s broad definition of illicit substances could also cause confusion, R Street says.

The think tank points out that the bill’s definition of illicit substances “would make it unlawful for businesses to promote them for sale or even for regular people to talk about their benefits online.”

“This clearly violates the First Amendment, as the bill is unconstitutionally narrow in scope,” Weissman wrote. “Basically, if speaking highly of or advertising these substances were truly dangerous, the state would have banned advertising in all its forms (e.g., print, television, digital).”

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Arizona Convenience Stores And Smoke Shops Must Stop Selling Delta-8 THC Products, Attorney General Says

Arizona law bars the sale of “diet weed” products like delta-8 THC in smoke shops and convenience stores, Attorney General Kris Mayes said.

But proponents of the hemp industry say the effect of a formal legal opinion that Mayes issued Monday goes far beyond the hemp-based intoxicants and will likely also sweep up the entirety of the CBD marketplace in Arizona, barring sales of products used to improve sleep and reduce body aches and pains.

And it may prompt litigation aimed at having the courts determine exactly how Arizona’s hemp and marijuana laws ought to be enforced.

Mayes, a Democrat, concluded in her opinion that, while federal law may allow for intoxicating substances to be made from hemp derivatives, Arizona law expressly regulates how such products are sold.

And that means they must be regulated by the Arizona Department of Health Services and only sold in dispensaries that are licensed to sell medical and recreational cannabis products.

Delta-8 is an intoxicating cannabinoid with a chemical profile and psychoactive effect materially similar to that of marijuana, but that is synthesized from the hemp plant. It is a chemical analog of delta-9, the primary psychoactive element that occurs naturally in marijuana.

Products made with delta-8 THC, including vape cartridges and gummies, are currently on sale in smoke shops across Arizona.

They have largely existed in a legal gray area in Arizona, with the hemp industry relying on congressional action in 2018, when that year’s annual Farm Bill expanded the definition of hemp to include “all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, [and] isomers” of the hemp plant. That paved the way for making delta-8, which is chemically synthesized from the naturally occurring cannabidiol into an intoxicating concentration.

Arizona voters have approved both medical and recreational marijuana in the state, but the industries are highly regulated, and licenses to operate are expensive. Arizona lawmakers this year are considering legislation backed by the hemp industry that would add more regulations to the sales of delta-8 THC products.

After the 2018 Farm Bill, production and sales of delta-8 THC products proliferated in Arizona, as they were seen as outside the scope of the state’s cannabis laws.

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Teen Use Of Delta-8 THC Is Higher In States Without Legal Marijuana, New Study Published By American Medical Association Finds

Teen use of delta-8 THC is higher in states where marijuana is illegal, according to a new study published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). When it comes to adolescent consumption of cannabis itself, “there were no differences in marijuana use by state-level cannabis policies,” the researchers concluded, contrary to legalization opponents’ oft-repeated claim that the reform will lead to increased teen use.

Overall, just over eleven percent of high-school seniors self-reported using cannabis products containing delta-8 THC in the past year, the study found. Use of the largely unregulated psychoactive cannabinoid “is appreciable among US adolescents,” authors wrote, “and is higher in states without marijuana legalization or existing Δ8-THC regulations.”

In states where marijuana remains prohibited, 14 percent of high-school seniors said they had used a delta-8 product in the past year, the federally funded research found. Where marijuana was legal, that figure was 7 percent.

Local decisions to regulate delta-8 THC were linked to even lower use rates among adolescents. In states with no delta-8 rules, 14.4 percent of participants had used the cannabinoid within the past year compared to just 5.7 percent in states with delta-8 regulations.

“Given the federal policy context and divergent regional and policy correlates of Δ8-THC and marijuana use found in this study,” the report says, “Δ8-THC may be marketed to and/or used by adolescents as a psychoactive cannabis substitute in places in which adult-use marijuana is illegal.”

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Minnesota Regulators Launch Effort To Catch Retailers Selling Illegal Marijuana As ‘Hemp’ Flower

It has been an open question—until now—whether registered hemp retailers in Minnesota are selling raw cannabis flower that crosses the line between legal hemp and illegal marijuana.

Marijuana use is legal in Minnesota, but legal sales haven’t started yet outside of tribal reservations. That means a raw cannabis flower purchased in the Twin Cities that recently tested above the legal limit isn’t supposed to be sold in the state.

Because of a gap in the state’s new recreational cannabis law, no state regulators had either the legal authority or the inspectors to sample the flower being sold to check whether it exceeded the federal and state definitions for hemp. That is, is the flower being sold in some stores legal or illegal? Does it contain more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC, the intoxicating compound in marijuana?

Turns out, it does. The sample purchased from a registered hemp store by a private person tested at levels that are illegal under the law, according to the results from a California-based cannabis testing lab. MinnPost agreed not to name either the raw flower purchaser or the lab but has verified the identities of both.

The lab reported the flower showed a potency of 1.1 percent delta-9 THC, three times the limit under state law. The same sample showed that the bud had total THC content of 29.99 percent. Total THC is a measure of all different types of THC in the flower and 29.99 percent is similar to the types of flower sold in legal recreational marijuana states.

The retail sample tested is actually more potent than a cannabis sample purchased on the illicit market in Minnesota and tested by the same lab. That sample showed 1.38 percent delta-9 THC and 25.36 percent total THC.

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Massachusetts Officials Eye Regulation Of THC-Infused Hemp Products Sold In Liquor Stores And Smoke Shops

Beacon Hill is waking up to a regulatory loophole that has allowed hemp drinks and gummies with intoxicating doses of THC—the same high-inducing ingredient found in cannabis—to show up in liquor stores, smoke shops and restaurants across Massachusetts.

At a legislative hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury) asked the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture Resources what she was doing about the spread of these unregulated products. The commissioner, Ashley Randle, said her agency is aware of the problem and working with the Department of Public Health to put out new guidance next month on how these products should be treated.

That was a big step forward. The products are technically illegal in Massachusetts, but neither the Agricultural Department, which regulates hemp, nor the Department of Public Health, which regulates food products, has stepped up with any enforcement. The agencies have left that job to under-resourced local boards of health which have taken no action.

Moore said the current situation isn’t working. “This is a product that people are going to be consuming. When I say people, this could be adults, it could be minors,” he said. “I think we need to have some review just to determine what’s safe.”

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Florida Lawmakers Pass Bill To Restrict Hemp Products And Ban Delta-8 THC, Sending It To DeSantis’s Desk

The Florida Legislature has approved a bill to regulate hemp-derived products in the state and eliminate delta-8 THC, which is banned in 17 states and severely restricted in seven more—though it is a popular item sold in retail establishments and people have used it for chronic illnesses.

Both chambers approved the legislation on Wednesday.

The Florida Senate passed the measure (SB 1698), sponsored by Polk County Republican Colleen Burton, unanimously, 39-0. That vote came just a few hours after a more contested vote in the House, where it was approved on a 64-48 vote.

For the past two years, the Legislature has worked on attempting to regulate the amount of THC in hemp-derived products. THC is the main component in cannabis that provides the psychoactive or “high” effect. The measure also bans the sale of all delta-8 products, one of the most popular items sold in retail establishments throughout the state over the past four years. And it also prohibits businesses from possessing hemp extract products that are considered “attractive” to children.

The measure says that the THC cannot exceed 5 milligrams per serving or 50 milligrams per package. Burton and the sponsor of the measure in the House, Manatee County’s Tommy Gregory, had originally set the limits at 2 milligrams per serving and 10 milligrams per package, but Gregory amended the limits earlier this week after taking input from the hemp industry.

Yet many of those who work in the hemp business in Florida say that those slightly increased THC caps are not going to be sufficient in terms of sustaining their economic vitality.

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