A Delaware lawmaker has pulled a bill that sought to restrict the sale of intoxicating hemp products to state-licensed cannabis stores and only allow sales of cannabis-infused beverages at liquor stores, WHYY News reports. State Rep. Debra Heffernan (D) indicated she pulled the proposal after pushback from CBD store owners, customers, and cannabis advocates, but that she plans to create a new bill “in the coming months” for consideration next session.  

“While I still believe in the importance of increasing safety testing and ensuring age verification for cannabinoid intoxicating products, I believe that further and wider conversations need to be had with business owners in this area and our new marijuana commissioner.” — Heffernan, in a statement posted to Facebook 

Joshua Sanderlin, Delaware’s Marijuana Commissioner, told WHYY News last week that he believes cannabis-infused drinks should be sold at retail dispensaries as long as they are produced in the state. He added that “there are no regulations” on intoxicating hemp products produced outside of Delaware and that “getting some” regulations and testing for the products “is the most important thing” facing regulators.    

Jena Murray, president of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable who works for a CBD company and is a resident of Delaware, told WHYY that an email campaign by her organization’s members and media stories led to Heffernan’s decision to pull the bill. She said the hemp industry in the state is looking forward to assisting in crafting “a bill that is really comprehensive and robust to protect children and adults as well.”  

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A Maryland hemp industry association and hemp businesses are suing the state over cannabis licensing and seized products, the Baltimore Sun reports. The Maryland Hemp Coalition, 10 businesses owners, and consumers of the products at the heart of the lawsuit argue that state laws illegally regulate hemp-derived products that are federally legal and that state agents are now selectively enforcing “erroneous testing standards” to seize items from shelves.  

The lawsuit also attacks state laws that cap cannabis licenses and how they are issued, including the state’s lottery for new businesses and social equity provisions. Nevin Young, the attorney representing the groups, told the Sun that the state’s licensing system was an unnecessary control intended to inflate cannabis prices and increase business values. He called it “communist cannabis.” 

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to rule that the social equity program and limits on the number of cannabis licenses, and how they’re issued, are unconstitutional. 

In a statement, Levi Sellers, president of the Maryland Hemp Coalition, said the law is “a model of regulatory overreach and economic favoritism,” and that the state is “stripping the rights of compliant hemp businesses and handing the market to politically connected cannabis dispensaries.”  

The state issued 205 licenses last year via its social equity lottery. The lawsuit describes that lottery as a “monopolized licensing scheme thinly disguised as being focused upon ‘social equity’” that has “no rational relationship to any public safety or health concerns.”     

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Hemp business owners in Missouri are organizing an initiative petition to deregulate cannabis in the state to allow for sales at stores that sell alcohol and tobacco, the Missouri Independent reports. In a call on Monday led by the hemp company American Shaman, advocates stated the goal of the effort is to repeal the state’s constitutional amendment that legalized cannabis in the state and replace it with language that directs state lawmakers to create regulations for cannabis that are “no more burdensome than what we already have for alcohol and tobacco,” industry lobbyist Eapen Thampy said during the call.  

“Part of the idea here is to remove that regulatory mandate in the Missouri Constitution. We devolve regulatory authority back to the Missouri General Assembly, the elected representative of the people where it belongs.” — Thampy, during the call, via the Independent 

The language of the petition is not yet finalized but Thampy indicated that it would ensure cannabis remained legal while the new rules are adopted by lawmakers, remove criminal offenses for possession over the legal limits, and retain current tax rates on cannabis products.   

The proposal comes amid a crackdown on hemp businesses in the state – last month, state Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) sent 18 cease and desist letters demanding that hemp retailers stop selling hemp flower products in the state.  

Thampy told the Independent that the campaign seeks “to give the marijuana operators an opportunity to pursue the consumer dollar in the mass market, as the hemp side already does.” However, Andrew Mullins, executive director for the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association, called the plan a “bait and switch.” 

“Missourians aren’t about to take hundreds of millions away from local communities, veterans and our justice system,” he told the Independent, “all in hopes that politicians will eventually replace it with something down the road.”  

The advocates of the plan expect the draft language of the initiative to be submitted to the Missouri Secretary of State by August. 

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