Muha Meds started as a passion project between two brothers, growing into one of cannabis' premier brands. See what we're most excited about.
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Whether you support them or not, intoxicating hemp products are probably not going to be around for much longer in their current form. States, municipalities, and even the federal government have begun a clampdown on these products. In no particular order, I’ll address a few reasons why the back half of 2024 will be a bad stretch for intoxicating hemp products.
First, let’s talk about Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a 2024 US Supreme Court decision. Loper ended what’s often referred to as “Chevron deference.” To vastly oversimplify, Chevron deference required federal courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, even if courts did not agree with those interpretations. With Chevron dead, courts will not be required to defer to agencies and courts can decide, on their own, whether an agency’s interpretation was within its statutory authority.
Ever since Loper was decided, there have been a million different theories on how it could affect the cannabis and hemp industries. [For the record, I agree with folks like Shane Pennington who argue that Loper will not affect rescheduling.]
When it comes to hemp though, Loper may in theory have more of an impact, as my colleague, Vince Sliwoski, argued prior to Loper‘s publication. That’s because the DEA routinely issues what amount to opinion letters as to whether this or that cannabinoid is or is not a schedule I narcotic. Under Loper, if there were any statutory ambiguity, the DEA’s interpretation would no longer be given deference. That’s not to say that the DEA might not prevail, but it means the deck would be less stacked in DEA’s favor.
That all said, all of this is almost certainly academic – at least if Congress passes the Farm Bill with proposed amendments that would ban intoxicating hemp products. If that happens, the DEA won’t need to opine on the legality of many (if not most or all) intoxicating hemp products. The law would have already changed to prohibit them expressly.
But what happens if the upcoming Farm Bill doesn’t contain bans on intoxicating hemp products? Things will almost certainly not end there. The FDA, which has been hostile to many hemp products since the day the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, could simply claim products are adulterated or misbranded and seek to pull them from the market. It does this with kratom, which is an unscheduled plant, and there’s no reason why it could not do it here (subject again to FDA having to prove its case in a post-Loper court challenge).
Things are also not looking great for intoxicating hemp products at the state and local levels. The State of Virginia, for example, just levied nearly $11 million in fines against more than 300 retailers allegedly selling state-prohibited intoxicating hemp products. Out west, the Colorado attorney general sued a business in June for allegedly selling super-high THC products marketed as federally legal hemp.
We also assume that there is a lot of local enforcement actions that go under the radar – things like state or local public health officials pulling products from shelves or warning stores. That can be harder to track if for no other reason than it doesn’t often make the news. We also assume that a lot of the reports concerning enforcement against alleged illegal marijuana stores or operators, including in places like New York, may miss the legal nuances between intoxicating hemp products and illegal cannabis products.
All in all, it’s hard to say how widespread enforcement is against intoxicating hemp products. But it is happening, and with increasing frequency. Even if the federal government doesn’t step in and end intoxicating hemp products via a new Farm Bill – which seems to be what will happen – we expect that state-level efforts to restrict or ban these products will continue.
As always, stay tuned to the Canna Law Blog for additional updates on hemp and intoxicating hemp products.
The post Intoxicating Hemp Products: The Future Isn’t Bright appeared first on Harris Sliwoski LLP.
Find the best CBD creams of 2024. Leafly reviewed popular topicals and chose what we think are the top picks for different needs and budgets.
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Floridians get to free the weed at the ballot box Nov. 5. What’s at stake? Scores of weed arrests, and at least $200 million per year in tax revenue for a massive, newly legal economy. Also, tens of millions of dollars more in criminal justice savings from fewer arrests, and prison sentences. That $200 million […]
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In case you’ve just fallen out of a coconut tree.
The post Coconut weed strains are a thing—Here’s America’s best appeared first on Leafly.
Kamala Harris is a heavy favorite for Democratic Presidential nominee, now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the race and endorsed her. This means we should re-open our short series on the 2024 Presidential candidates and marijuana. I thought we were done with this stuff.
We can trot out some deep cuts with Kamala Harris here on the blog. In January 2018, I picked her out of the pile as an example of a politician who talks a big game on cannabis while doing nothing helpful. I also surveyed her record on marijuana, which was pretty miserable at the time. In that post, I noted:
As California Attorney General, Ms. Harris did little to advance her state’s interest as to cannabis. In 2014, when she was asked for her opinion on legalizing adult-use cannabis, her response was dismissive laughter. As a state Senator, she has failed to sponsor or even co-sign any bill to re- or deschedule marijuana (and there are some good ones). Aside from lots of talking, Harris’ one big move has been to put together a petition to decriminalize marijuana nationwide (but not to revise the CSA). My eight-year-old niece could do that.
Ms. Harris was a California Senator at the time I wrote those words. She later threw her hat in the ring as a Presidential candidate in the 2020 election. The national sentiment on cannabis policy, along with the Democratic Party’s, was fluid at the time. Harris seemed to evolve along with it. She began to call for legalizing marijuana on social media in 2019, and, as we pointed out in another blog post, her campaign website advertised:
Kamala will take action to legalize marijuana, further reform federal sentencing laws, end private prisons and the profiting off of people in prison, and push states to prioritize treatment and rehabilitation for drug offenses.
We commented:
As a Senator, Harris’ rhetoric has become increasingly pro-legalization. Most recently, in 2018 Harris co-sponsored the Marijuana Justice Act which would legalize marijuana if passed. Her apparent pro-legalization stance, however, hasn’t always translated into legislative action. Her recent co-sponsorship of the Marijuana Justice Act comes only after she passed up many opportunities to co-sponsor or sign bills which would have legalized or rescheduled marijuana. The timing of her co-sponsorship of the bill — just over half a year before her official announcement of her presidential candidacy — suggests her sponsorship was a political move. Harris knows she must visibly adopt the pro-legalization platform to have a shot at the presidency as the majority of Americans support legalization. But we wonder how much priority she would actually give the issue if elected into office.
Harris didn’t win the Party’s nomination that year. Interestingly, a searing, cannabis-related takedown by Tulsi Gabbard helped submarine Harris’s candidacy. Gabbard led her indictment in that viral debate moment by saying: “She [Harris] put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.” Gabbard then assailed Harris on criminal justice more broadly. Harris’s candidacy never recovered.
Still, Biden picked Harris for his running mate, and most of us were fine with that. I put together another post in August of 2020 titled “Kamala Harris Will Help With Cannabis Reform (and That’s Good Enough for Me).” In that post, I summarized:
… It’s not how you start, but how you finish. Harris has really picked up the charge on cannabis issues lately, including in her role as Senate sponsor of the MORE Act. As drafted, the MORE Act removes marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act and provides expungement for certain cannabis offenses (and has a 3% chance of actually becoming law someday).
Still, if Harris keeps at it her advocacy will be a real boon, especially given Biden’s perplexing unwillingness to support cannabis legalization (we gave Biden a “D”), and especially given the Democrats’ failure at large to add marijuana legalization to the party platform once again this year. (Pretty disappointing, especially considering where the party was at in the run-up to the 2016 convention).
So we should credit Harris for coming around on cannabis, especially where the center of her party is still a half step behind. It is true that the Biden-Harris ticket is not the best that legalization advocates could have hoped for; but, like the U.S. at large, the Democratic party continues to float toward inevitably ending prohibition. Harris is going to help with that, even if it doesn’t happen as quickly as we had once hoped.
You know the rest. Biden and Harris were elected into office, with Harris supporting cannabis legalization and Biden pledging to “decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions.” None of this happened, or will happen by November.
Instead, Biden ordered some overhyped federal pardons, and eventually, an administrative review of marijuana’s CSA placement. The latter directive resulted in a recommendation to move marijuana to schedule III. In the big picture, I offered that “what Biden did here may ultimately be helpful, but certainly not as helpful as possible. Biden passed the buck, putting us on an uncertain, circuitous path.”
Which is where we stand today. Kamala Harris, as Vice President, has mostly been silent thought all of it.
So what would Harris do as President, with respect to marijuana? I think the right answer is: “Kamala Harris would do whatever is politically expedient, but she would not otherwise prioritize cannabis reform.”
Today I am giving Kamala Harris a “B” grade, if only because she is a Presidential candidate who has called for cannabis legalization. And I think she would likely make that happen– provided she doesn’t have to work for it.
For prior posts in this series, check out the following:
The post Grading the Presidential Candidates on Marijuana: Kamala Harris appeared first on Harris Sliwoski LLP.
Here's this week's Good Grades review of Eureka vapes.
The post Good Grades Dispensary: Weekly Report Card [July 15, 2024] appeared first on Leafly.
