CBD shops and hemp farms are bracing as state officials recently warned of enforcement of a newly signed law against the sale of some products containing THC.
A letter was sent earlier this month to hemp- and CBD-related businesses from the state Department of Consumer Protection warning that, “The sale of high-THC hemp products and synthetic cannabinoids at unauthorized retailers is unlawful and action may be taken by law enforcement.”
Under federal law, products with less than .3 percent THC are legal to produce and sell but a Connecticut law passed this year defines “high-THC hemp products” using a different metric. Edibles, hemp topicals or hemp transdermal patches may not contain more than 1 milligram of THC per serving, or 5 milligrams of THC per container. That law goes into effect Oct. 1.
Kristin Souza, who owns and operates Sugar Leaf, a CBD shop in Middletown, said that the change excludes many products that have no psychoactive effect at all.
“It’s absolutely absurd to me that we are going to waste state funds and law enforcement action over non-intoxicating bath bombs, and body lotions,” she said. “It’s just unreal to me.”
“It’s insanity,” said Michael Goodenough, a hemp grower and owner of D&G Agtek, which processes hemp into various products. “Everything on my floor right now is illegal. Every bit of it. Everything I spent money on, everything that I put my time and energy and effort into is now gone.”
Connecticut’s hemp growing and processing industry began in 2018, when then-President Donald Trump signed a bill making legal the cultivation of hemp plants with less than .3 percent THC and the sale of CBD products derived from those plants.
More recently, CBD had been chemically altered into THC and sold in some CBD shops in Connecticut. Several CBD shops that were selling products containing chemically altered THC, called Delta-8, were raided in an effort to crackdown on illegal sales, Attorney General William Tong said.
“This is incredibly dangerous stuff and it’s totally unregulated,” Tong said earlier this year. “These are all bootleg products, illegal products. We don’t have any real information about how they’re made, what’s in them, whether they’re safe for anyone’s consumption.”
While Souza did not disagree with the law’s intention, she said it went too far.
“Yes, get those fake synthetic things out of gas stations that my 20-year-old can get her hands on. I don’t want any of that either,” she said. “But we just went so overboard.”
Goodenough believes that the new regulations will not affect the illicit market but will impact small, hemp-related businesses.
“Its original goal was put into place to shut down gas stations having 1,000 milligrams worth of gummy ropes,” he said. “This does nothing to stop that. Those things were already illegal. So what does this do except hurt my farmer?”
Goodenough and Souza said that national brands, including the well-known Charlotte’s Web line of products, will no longer be legal for sale in Connecticut. Existing hemp products must now be chemically stripped of THC if they are to be sold, and with the closure of Alta Science earlier this year, there is only a single company in Connecticut licensed to test cannabis products.
“I do 800 products for 80 companies,” Goodenough said. “I have to have all of those done for Oct. 1. That’s crippling. That’s unbelievably crippling.”
The end result, Goodenough and Souza believe, will be the closure of hemp-related companies.
“We’re all just kind of swirling in circles as to what to do,” Souza said. “But the reality is, I think that you’ll see a lot of these stores closing because even if we can reformulate we’re reformulating to a level that’s really impacting the efficacy of the medicine.”
In 2019, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill allowing for the production of industrial hemp in Connecticut.
“With this program, farmers will have the opportunity to bolster their profits with hemp, and veteran and first-time farmers alike will be attracted to a new and growing market that will offer crop diversification, increased revenue, and expertise in an expanding field,” Lamont said then.
The new regulations, Goodenough said, could cripple the state’s hemp industry, four years later.
“The hemp farmers aren’t just leaving the business, they’re losing their farms. They put everything they had into an industry that Connecticut gave us. Connecticut said, ‘Do this. Form a brand new industry on your backs, farmers,’ and then they pulled it out from underneath us. They just let us for the past three years spend every penny we have, every bit of effort that we have learning a whole new industry and creating that industry, only to turn around and literally have the carpet swept out from underneath.”
H/T: www.ctinsider.com
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