Last month, Governor Mike Parson of Missouri signed an executive order that would remove all THC drinks and edibles derived from hemp from shelves and impose penalties on any establishment that continued to sell them.
In his statement, Parson stated that the primary target of his order were companies that sold intoxicating hemp edibles mimicking candy. He explained that because hemp wasn’t a controlled substance, there were no federal or state laws prohibiting minors from purchasing these products or even preventing stores from selling the products to underaged individuals.
Last week, the state’s Hemp Trade Association filed a suit in Cole County Circuit Court to stop this ban from taking effect. This comes after the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services issued a memo to food retailers detailing how the ban would be imposed. The association’s attorney, Chuck Hatfield, stated that the memo shed light on what the state wanted to do, noting that it was illegal.
In their argument, leaders in the hemp industry argued that the order banned products which had undergone lab testing, weren’t attractive to minors, and were only sold to consumers aged 21 and above. The order, as per the memo, directs regulators to identify edibles that contain unregulated psychoactive products as adulterated, poisonous and deleterious.
This contradicts the law, which stipulates that food shouldn’t be considered adulterated solely for containing a commodity of industrial hemp or hemp itself. This clause was added to the state’s law after Congress legalized hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill.
Hatfield revealed that in their defense, they would highlight how the department was acting ultra vires by banning psychoactive cannabinoid hemp products across the board. He added that an executive order couldn’t trump Missouri law, particularly when there weren’t administrative rules in place to substantiate their claims.
In other news, emergency rules proposed by the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control were rejected by Jay Ashcroft, Missouri’s secretary of state. The rules would have given the division the authority to enforce the embargo imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services (HSS) at premises licensed to sell alcohol or tobacco.
According to state law, HSS regulators will have to visit each individual retailer and place an embargo tag on products deemed adulterated. Hatfield notes the department has no authority to remove things off retailers’ shelves.
Following the rejection, the rules will have to undergo a standard process that may take half a year.
This developing story in Missouri is likely to be of interest to all cannabis companies, including Green Thumb Industries Inc. (CSE: GTII) (OTCQX: GTBIF), because the proliferation of hemp-derived intoxicants introduces a factor that marijuana industry players have to contend with as they serve their target clients.
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