Illinois lawmakers last week joined representatives of the licensed cannabis industry to call for a ban on intoxicating hemp products including delta-8 THC. Under one proposal, non-intoxicating hemp products would be regulated with rules for licensing hemp businesses and the testing and labeling of hemp products. Synthetically produced hemp products such as delta-8 THC, however, would be banned by the legislation.

The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp agriculture and hemp products, ending the prohibition of the crop that had been in place for decades. However, the legislation failed to regulate hemp cannabinoids, leading to a proliferation of intoxicating hemp products such as delta-8. As a result, intoxicating hemp products are widely sold at unregulated outlets such as convenience stores, gas stations and smoke shops, often without any age restrictions or regulatory oversight.

State Representative Eva-Dina Delgado, the mother of a teen, said at a press conference on Thursday that young people are buying intoxicating hemp products from local and call the use of them “greening out.”

“It scares me to my core to think about young people putting that in their bodies and we just have no idea what’s in it,” she said.

Many states have been implementing legislation to regulate hemp products, with some calling for a ban on delta-8 and similar intoxicating cannabinoids. At a press conference at the Illinois Capitol in Springfield on Thursday, lawmakers, regulators and owners of licensed cannabis businesses unveiled a proposal to regulate hemp products. Under the proposal, Senate Bill 3926, hemp products such as CBD could be produced by licensed businesses complying with testing and labeling requirements. Synthetically produced cannabinoids such as delta-8 would be banned.

“The goal of this legislation is to empower consumers ensuring that they know exactly what they’re consuming and what they are,” Tiffany Chappell Ingram, the executive director of the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois, said at last week’s press conference. “We also want to protect the public health and maintain the integrity of our state’s long-fought-for legal cannabis industry, which is undermined by these unregulated products.”

Delta-8 Products Copy Popular Brands

A table at the news conference was filled with delta-8 products including candy and snacks purchased at unregulated outlets that proponents of the bill say pose a danger to young people. Many of the products were designed to imitate popular brands, including one bag of corn chips labeled “Fritos” which had small cannabis leaves on the products.

“Without regulation, we have no idea what is really in these products,” Joseph Friedman, the former CEO of the former cannabis dispensary PDI Medical, said during Thursday’s press conference. “That should be concerning to us all, especially since some of these intoxicating products are chemically modified, and widely available to young folks, teenagers and kids.”

The legislation includes provisions to penalize those who violate its hemp regulations. A first offense would be subject to a fine of $1,000, while a second offense within three years would carry a fine of $5,000. Subsequent violations of the legislation within three years would be assessed a fine of $10,000.

Ron Miller, a co-owner of his family-run licensed cannabis businesses Navada Labs and BLYSS Dispensary, said that allowing unregulated intoxicating hemp products amounts to unfair competition for the regulated marijuana industry.

“It is deeply disheartening and, frankly, a betrayal by the state to allow these shops to pop up and call themselves dispensaries,” Miller said at the news conference on Thursday, according to a report from Capitol News Illinois.

State Senator Celina Villanueva warned about the potential impact on Illinois residents if the state does not adopt regulations to govern hemp products.

“Without proper oversight, consumers are left vulnerable to a myriad of risks from unknowingly consuming products with inaccurate THC levels to encountering harmful contaminants,” Villanueva said. “The absence of regulation leaves too much to chance.” 

Illinois Hemp Companies Oppose Legislation

After last week’s press conference, those opposed to the legislation argued their case. Charles Wu, a co-founder of Chi’Tiva, a business with hemp stores in the Illinois cities of Chicago and Worth, said the proposed ban was a “money play” to eliminate competition.

“We want to operate responsibly and on a level playing field,” Wu told the Chicago Tribune. “This would put us out of business.”

State Representative La Shawn Ford has introduced alternative legislation that would allow the sale of intoxicating hemp products. However, the bill requires such products to be tested, labeled and taxed. Banning intoxicating hemp products, the lawmaker said, only creates an unregulated market for them.

“This is so strange and hypocritical,” Ford said. “Just because you ban a product doesn’t mean it’s going away. We need to tax and regulate it.”

Senate Bill 3926 was introduced on April 10 and has been referred to the Senate Assignments Committee. Ford’s bill was assigned to the House Rules Committee in October.

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No. Teen use is down. Mental health rates are stable.

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Regulators in Oregon will enact a ban on cannabinoids produced through laboratory processes, making the state the first in the nation to restrict the sale of so-called synthesized cannabinoids at grocery stores and other general retailers. The ban from state cannabis regulators, which goes into effect on July 1, prohibits the sale of lab-made cannabinoids including delta-8 THC at supermarkets, drug stores, and other retailers that have not obtained a special license. The new regulations will go into effect only weeks after a federal appeals court ruled that delta-8 THC and other cannabinoids derived from hemp are legal under federal law.

Delta-8 THC and minor cannabinoids derived from hemp have become business across the country since the federal legalization of hemp agriculture and processing with the 2018 Farm Bill. Although these cannabinoids are generally found in hemp at very small concentrations if at all, many of the substances can be created in a lab through the chemical conversion of CBD. But the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) is concerned about the safety of the process and the chemicals used to carry it out and more than a dozen states have instituted bans on delta-8 THC.

Steven Crowley, the hemp and processing compliance specialist with the OLCC, told Oregon Live that delta-8 THC and other cannabinoids became increasingly popular with hemp processors after a glut of CBD flooded the market.

“The supply of CBD was outstripping the demand for CBD,” said Crowley. “And so, the people who had CBD on hand were looking for other ways that they could market it. People started working on different products that they could convert the CBD into. This is where you get the delta-8 THC products.”

FDA Issues Delta-8 THC Warning

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning about delta-8 THC, noting that more than 100 reports of adverse effects caused by products containing the cannabinoid were recorded over the span of 15 months. And the OLCC is concerned about the safety of the chemicals used to process CBD into other cannabinoids and whether trace amounts of the substances can be retained in finished products.

“We have testing for pesticides,” said Crowley. “We have testing for residual solvents from the extraction process. We don’t have any testing for any of the whole universe of chemical reagents that you could use to synthetically turn one cannabinoid into something else, or for any of the byproducts of that reaction.”

The new OLCC regulations prohibit the sale of products containing synthesized cannabinoids at general retailers beginning on July 1. At that time, the sale of such products will be allowed exclusively at retailers licensed by the OLCC, but only after they have undergone rigorous safety testing and receive approval from the  FDA.

The decision by the OLCC is opposed by companies that produce and market cannabinoids derived from hemp including Wyld, an Oregon firm that manufacturers gummies with the cannabinoid CBN, which can be processed from CBD and has been shown to promote sleep. Gabe Lee, general counsel at Wyld and Wyld CBD, said that the new regulation will help the company’s bottom line and have a negative impact on consumers, as well.

“The Wyld elderberry CBN gummy is the number one selling gummy on earth right now,” said Lee. “It’s 20%-30% of our revenue depending on the state. People love it.”

Instead of a complete ban, Lee said that Oregon should draft best practices to be followed in the production of hemp-derived cannabinoids.

“There are ways to regulate it and there are definitely ways that we can ensure that the end product that’s being sold is subject to enough safety testing and safety standards to ensure, to the degree possible, the safety of the product without any sort of larger federal research grants or anything like that,” Lee said.

The attorney also noted that with the ban, consumers who have already been using the products without problems will see higher prices at licensed retailers.

“They may not want to go shop at an OLCC retailer or pay the prices that are up there,” Lee said, “because they are definitely charging a higher price in the OLCC regulated market than they are at New Seasons,” referring to a chain of neighborhood grocery stores popular in the Pacific Northwest.

Appeals Court Rules Delta-8 THC Is Legal

The new regulations go into effect only weeks after a federal appeals court ruled that delta-8 THC and other cannabinoids derived from hemp are legal under the 2018 Farm Bill. In an opinion from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals released last month, Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote that products made with delta-8 THC are generally legal under federal law, which defines hemp as “any part of” the cannabis plant, including “all derivatives, extracts, [and] cannabinoids,” that contains less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by weight.

Federal statute “is silent with regard to delta-8 THC,” the court said in its 3-0 ruling.

“Regardless of the wisdom of legalizing delta-8 THC products, this Court will not substitute its own policy judgment for that of Congress,” Fisher wrote in the appeals court’s unanimous decision.

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I tried the extremely potent THC-O, aka the ‘spiritual cannabinoid.’ Here’s what happened next.

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