As he was checking out at a convenience store one day, state Rep. Kurtis Gregory said he looked down and saw “delta-8 THC” products being sold.
He had no idea THC, the intoxicating component mostly associated with marijuana, could be sold openly outside of dispensaries.
“I messaged a few folks and to my surprise, yep, that is completely at this point legal to be sold,” Gregory, a Republican from Marshall, said during a House committee hearing on Tuesday.
The products that caught Gregory’s eye give people a high by way of a concentrated amount of delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that’s typically manufactured from hemp-derived cannabidiol, or CBD.
Because hemp is legal, hemp-derived THC products avoid the intense scrutiny marijuana receives. In fact, they are completely unregulated by the state and federal government.
There’s no law saying teenagers or children can’t buy them or stores can’t sell them to minors — though some stores and vendors have taken it upon themselves to impose age restrictions of 21 and up. And there’s no requirement to list potential effects on the label or test how much THC is actually in them.
Gregory’s bill would task the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services with regulating these products, as the agency currently does for the state’s marijuana program. And the products would have to be sold at DHSS-licensed dispensaries.
“The reason I’m doing this right now is there’s currently no age limits on it,” Gregory said. “I feel like this is operating under a loophole right now.”
During the Tuesday hearing, a number of people — from delta-8 businesses and law enforcement to the American Academy of Pediatrics and lawmakers — agreed that there needs to be age restrictions and regulations in product labeling and testing.
But both Republican and Democratic lawmakers pushed back on the idea of forcing the 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.
Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho, talked about a business owner who went through the expensive medical-marijuana license application and was denied. Now he’s selling hemp-derived THC products.
“The ones behind the initial rollout of the medical marijuana weren’t greedy enough,” Baker said, “and now they’re coming after the businesses that made the best of it.”
The marijuana instantly became big business in Missouri 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 — the minimum required in the constitution.
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 last year’s campaign to legalize recreational marijuana.
Another concern, critics said, is that hemp is federally legal, and lumping it in with the regulations of a controlled substance could result in lawsuits.
Gregory’s bill also states that no facility “shall manufacture or sell any product that contains synthetic cannabinoids or cannabimimetic agents,” which opponents say would hurt hemp businesses overall.
“I’m not inclined to think that the closing of the loophole should entail as effectively torpedoing the entire industry,” said Rep. Tony Lovasco, R-O’Fallon.
Democratic Rep. Peter Merideth of St. Louis agreed.
Source: fox2now.com
Photo Credit: GettyImages-FatCamera
Categories: Missouri, Business, Government & Policy