California Dems pave way to getting stoned on hemp by killing reform. Cannabis loses | Opinion
California’s leading Democrats are letting the state’s hemp industry go to pot, killing legislation that would have banned hemp products available in stores that can leave buyers just as stoned as cannabis-based offerings at certified dispensaries.
While hemp and cannabis are botanical cousins, California regulates them quite differently. While they both can pack an intoxicating punch, only cannabis products are restricted to dispensaries and taxed. This week, a state legislator’s attempt to tame hemp products died in the State Senate, with the fingerprints of Democrats as the culprits of its demise. It’s a sign that the hemp industry has some serious clout with the party in power, enough to roll a normally influential Democrat.
“I think we saw, once more, the power of money and the lobbying strength that money can buy in politics,” said Dr. Lynn Silver, an opponent of intoxicating hemp products who is senior advisor to the Berkeley-based Public Health Institute.
Unlike intoxicating cannabis, hemp products are available at vape shops and other retailers, with no age requirements under existing state law.
“The Legislature and the governor have failed to protect kids,” said Jim Keddy, executive director of the Sacramento-based Youth Forward, which promotes youth programs and efforts to keep intoxicating hemp and cannabis products out of the hands of California minors.
You read that right. Sacramento Democrats can’t muster the votes to keep kids from getting stoned.
The cannabis industry, law enforcement and cities were no match against hemp heavyweights such as Cheech and Chong’s Global Holdings.
State Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, the Winters Democrat, tried to regulate hemp with her Assembly Bill 2223, but it died a quiet death, without a vote.
“The Majority Leader (Aguiar-Curry) will have no comment on the Senate’s action to hold AB 2223,” said her chief of staff, John Ferrera.
It was Aguiar-Curry who thought she was keeping intoxicating products in cannabis stores when she passed Assembly Bill 45 in 2021.
Congress in 2018 passed a bill to remove hemp from its list of controlled substances, opening the door to commercial products containing the plant. Like cannabis, hemp contains the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol.
Aguiar-Curry has said she responded to the federal law with AB 45 to both advance the industry in California and to restrict any product to having only 0.3% of THC. But Keddy and others at the time were worried that the bill could legally lead to hemp products having the same intoxicating levels as cannabis products like gummies. AB 45 had no restrictions on where the projects could be sold or the age of the purchaser.
With potent hemp products proliferating throughout the state, Aguiar-Curry returned with a bill this year hoping to take the buzz out of the industry.
“The bottom line is if it gets you high, it should not be sold outside of a (cannabis) dispensary,” Aguiar-Curry said this March. “It shouldn’t be sold on a corner store.” Her bill both limited any THC in a hemp product to be sold in the open market to non-intoxicating levels. And it provided a new regulatory path for hemp-based products packed with THC to be sold in dispensaries alongside cannabis products with the same effect.
These are two common sense ideas. That’s why Democrats killed them.
The Senate is led by its Democratic Pro-Tem, Mike McGuire of Healdsburg. “From what I heard, it was held by Senator McGuire out of concerns in his district, having to do with the competition between hemp and cannabis growers,” Keddy said.
Attempts for a comment from McGuire and his office were unsuccessful.
“They allowed the conflicts between the industries to take precedence over kids,” Keddy said. “That’s my read on it.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California Department of Public Health could do more. AB 45 gave the department power to regulate THC levels in hemp products. “We’ve been requesting that for several years,” Silver said.
Asked about hemp, the department emailed, “CDPH cannot commend on proposed or pending legislation.”
When it comes to hemp, California’s leading Democrats are treating the botanical as above the law. California voters in 2016 approved Proposition 64 and legalized THC products containing marijuana, not hemp. They approved a cannabis tax to generate revenues for the state while giving local governments control to permit local cultivation and sales.
As hemp emerges as an alternative to legalized cannabis, it threatens a return to the Wild West of weed. Democrats appear too conflicted to do anything. And they don’t seem to care about the consequences of inaction —products that can get kids seriously stoned.
This story was originally published August 31, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California Dems pave way to getting stoned on hemp by killing reform. Cannabis loses | Opinion."