Bill To Let Only Marijuana Dispensaries Sell Intoxicating Hemp Products Stalls In St. Louis County, Missouri

“I think that there’s a sincere appetite from enough members on the council that recognize there’s some problems that need to be addressed with this industry.”

By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent

A final vote on a St. Louis County bill to regulate intoxicating hemp products stalled out Tuesday night after about a dozen business owners and lobbyists opposed it at the county council meeting.

The bill’s sponsor, St. Louis County Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, told The Independent on Wednesday morning that she plans on revisiting the bill’s language and will hold a public hearing no later than the end of September.

“I don’t know what the final version looks like yet,” Clancy said, “but I think that there’s a sincere appetite from enough members on the council that recognize there’s some problems that need to be addressed with this industry and some of the products on the market.”

In January, Clancy proposed a bill to prohibit products like beverages and edibles that are often labeled as “hemp-derived Delta-9” or “Delta-8” from being sold outside of marijuana dispensaries.

If enacted, the bill would effectively ban those products in Missouri’s largest county.

The county’s health department would be tasked with enforcement, including seizing and destroying the products.

Brian Riegel, owner of two Missouri intoxicating-hemp companies, said Tuesday that he encourages the council to regulate the products but not ban them.

“We can maybe use this platform…to encourage the state to regulate this in the proper manner, rather than outlaw it,” Riegel said. “This is going to drive a black market bigger than we’ve ever seen because it’s already here.”

For the past three years, Missouri lawmakers have attempted to pass legislation that would put hemp-derived THC products under the same regulatory framework as marijuana. The proposals were met by fierce opposition, particularly from associations representing convenience stores, hemp companies and veterans.

This past spring, Republican state Sen. Nick Schroer of Defiance offered a proposal that carved out an exception for low-dose THC beverages, which have been sold in Missouri’s bars and liquor stores for seven years. It still required things like high-dose gummies, THCA flower and vapes to only be sold in marijuana dispensaries.

Schroer’s bill was filibustered by state Sen. Karla May and other St. Louis Democratic senators, who argued that it would create a monopoly for the marijuana industry and harm small businesses.

Hemp naturally has very little THC, the intoxicating component mostly associated with marijuana. But that potency can be increased with some science.

While marijuana products must be sold in dispensaries and be grown and manufactured in state-regulated facilities, intoxicating hemp products have been completely unregulated by any governmental agency since 2018—when Congress passed a Farm Bill that legalized hemp.

The St. Louis City NAACP submitted a letter to the council stating that its members “stand in solidarity” with May as she opposed legislation that had the same language as Clancy’s.

“While we recognize efforts to promote public safety, we are gravely concerned that this bill will disproportionately impact small, often minority-owned businesses—vape shops, convenience stores, and independent retailers—that have legally entered the hemp market under the protections of the federal 2018 Farm Bill,” the NAACP letter states.

When Clancy held the bill from going to a vote Tuesday night, she said the goal is to protect public health. But she said she understands “there’s still some discussions that need to happen.”

She told The Independent last month that she’s most concerned about the edibles that look like candy and are sold in places children can access. Her bill doesn’t ban non-intoxicating products, like CBD seltzers or lotions, she said.

Several people testified Tuesday that Clancy’s bill would put companies out of business. Clancy told The Independent Wednesday those allegations are “unfounded.”

“We don’t have data to support that,” she said. “A lot of these companies, what they’re not saying is that they’ve existed long before the 2018 Farm Bill.”

This story was first published by Missouri Independent.

Photo courtesy of Pexels.