There are enough council members who recognize that this industry has some issues that must be resolved.
By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
After a dozen or so businessmen and lobbyists spoke out against the legislation, Tuesday’s final vote was not taken.
The Independent was told by Lisa Clancy (St. Louis County Councilwoman) on Wednesday morning, that the sponsor of the bill plans to revisit the bill’s text and hold a public meeting no later than September 30.
Clancy stated that he did not know the exact final form of the document, but that there was a genuine desire from a sufficient number of council members to address the problems with the industry and certain products currently 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.
The bill, if passed, would ban these products from Missouri’s biggest county.
Enforcement would be the responsibility of county health departments, who will seize and destroy products.
Brian Riegel owns two Missouri companies that produce intoxicating-hemp. On Tuesday, he said he wants the Council to regulate these products rather than 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 already driving a bigger black market than ever before.
Missouri legislators have tried to pass legislation for the last three years that would place hemp-derived THC under the same legal framework as marijuana. The proposal was met with strong opposition, especially from convenience stores, hemp businesses and veterans’ associations.
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. This proposal required that things such as high-dose gummies or THCA flower, and vapes be only sold at 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.
Natural hemp contains very little THC (the intoxicating ingredient most commonly 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.
Clancy said that the purpose of her decision to prevent the bill being put to vote on Tuesday night was to protect the public’s health. She said that she understood “there are still discussions to be had.”
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. She said that her bill does not ban products like CBD lotions and seltzers.
Clancy’s Bill would cause companies to go out of business, said several witnesses Tuesday. Clancy, in a statement to The Independent published Wednesday, said that the allegations made by The Independent were “unfounded.”
She said, “We do not have any data that supports this.” They don’t say that many of these companies existed well before the Farm Bill.
First published in Missouri Independent.
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