Fort Lauderdale-based Just Brands LLC sells hemp-derived CBD products on its website. On Nov. 1, the company filed a lawsuit claiming the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services overstepped its bounds with recent enforcement actions. (Courtesy/Just Brands LLC)
A Fort Lauderdale-based seller of hemp-derived CBD products is challenging a state agency’s order that the company says bars them from selling products the state deems “attractive to children” to buyers outside Florida.
Just Brands LLC sells hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products that include gummies, tinctures, cartridges, oils and creams via mail order from its website. Some of its products also contain up to 0.3% delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient that produces the euphoric high that cannabis is known for.
Sold under the brand name “Just CBD,” the products are promoted on the company’s website “for stress,” “for sleep,” “for pain,” and “for pets.”
On Tuesday, agents for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services “barged into Just Brands’ offices” and issued nine stop-sale orders that prohibit the company from selling its products outside Florida, Just Brands claimed in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale.
The lawsuit contends that barring the company from “holding” or “storing” the offending products is an unconstitutional breach of the Commerce Clause that protects interstate commerce from discrimination or undue burdens.
The department issued its orders based on new restrictions barring sales in the state of hemp products “attractive to children” that took effect on July 1.
As defined by an amendment to the state’s hemp laws, these include products made in the shape of humans, cartoons or animals; products with any “reasonable resemblance” to an existing candy product; or products that contain any color additives.
The amendment authorized the department to issue stop-sale orders to businesses found selling such products.
After the law took effect, Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services launched a sting operation called “Operation Kandy Krush.”
FDACS agents entered Just Brands’ offices on Tuesday, the lawsuit states, and issued nine stop-sale orders “essentially prohibiting Just Brands from selling all its products.” One of its agents informed the company that it was illegal to “simply store product which may be ‘attractive to children’ in Florida for the sole purpose of selling in other states,” according to the complaint.
The suit seeks an order barring enforcement of that interpretation, saying nothing in the state’s hemp law or this year’s amendment prohibits Just Brands or any other company “from storing products which will be sold in another state” that has not enacted similar restrictions.
“FDACS is without power to redefine a legislatively defined term and construe what is otherwise specific statutory language,” the suit states.
On Friday, Just Brands’ website was still operating and offering for sale a wide variety of hemp-extract CBD products, including some made with delta-8 THC, a product that some say produces effects milder than THC derived from marijuana, but others say is unregulated and dangerous.
Just Brands’ attorney, Alex Tirado-Luciano, declined by email to answer questions about whether the company continues to sell products from its website, saying “this is pending litigation.”
“What I can say is that from the inception of the passage of the amendment to the hemp law, it is clear the Department has waged a war against Florida businesses attempting to legally comply with vague requirements,” Tirado-Luciano said by email.
“Taking advantage of the lack of guidance on what the amendments cover in order to advance a politically motivated vendetta against my client’s industry, the Department is taking sweeping and heavy handed actions contrary to the legislative intent of the law,” he said. “The department only has the power to regulate matters within the state of Florida which do not stifle interstate commerce. They are not the federal government.”
Asked for a comment about the lawsuit, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services replied on Friday, “We just received it and are currently reviewing it.”
Companies across the United States have been selling hemp-extract products under the 2018 Farm Bill that defined “hemp” and created a process for states to establish their own cultivation programs.
On July 1, 2019, Florida enacted its own law that defined hemp as an agricultural commodity and determined that hemp-derived cannabinoids “are not controlled substances or adulterants” if they comply with the law.
The restrictions enacted this year drew little attention compared to the effort to get a constitutional amendment on 2024 election ballots that, if passed, would legalize recreational marijuana.
But Wilton Simpson, the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture, has been issuing news releases touting the department’s efforts to block the sale of hemp-extract products covered under the amendment, which Simpson says “can pose serious risks when injected by children.”
Simpson worked with Sen. Colleen Burton of Lakeland and Rep. Will Robinson of Bradenton on the amendment, according to a news release on Thursday announcing that stop-sale orders were issued for more than 8,700 packages found at a different company, Top Private Label Co. in Daytona Beach.
In addition to barring sale of hemp products the state regards as marketed to or attractive to children, the amendment also prohibits sales to anyone under 21, requires that products sold in Florida be packaged in a safe container, and holds consumable hemp products to the same safety standards as other food products.
After the amendment took effect, the department conducted what it called “the largest ever inspection sweep of businesses selling hemp products” in July and August.
More than 83,000 packages of hemp-extract products considered attractive or marketed to children were found during inspections of more than 700 businesses in all 67 Florida counties, the news release said.
H/T: www.sun-sentinel.com
