{"id":77494,"date":"2024-08-21T06:16:02","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/08\/21\/intoxicating-hemp-products-are-undercutting-south-dakota-medical-marijuana-sales-businesses-tell-lawmakers\/"},"modified":"2024-08-21T19:46:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T03:46:00","slug":"intoxicating-hemp-products-are-undercutting-south-dakota-medical-marijuana-sales-businesses-tell-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/08\/21\/intoxicating-hemp-products-are-undercutting-south-dakota-medical-marijuana-sales-businesses-tell-lawmakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Intoxicating Hemp Products Are Undercutting South Dakota Medical Marijuana Sales, Businesses Tell Lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have been allowed to sell that product in our store, and yet we\u2019re forced to compete with that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Dakota\u2019s legislative oversight committee on medical marijuana was thrust into the world of synthetic THC on Monday as members heard complaints about how loosely regulated, hemp-derived products are affecting the state\u2019s medical marijuana industry.<\/p>\n

The Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee heard from business owners and the State Public Health Laboratory director during a meeting in Pierre. They\u2019re concerned about the growth in synthetically altered, hemp-derived products, sold under terms including delta-8 THC and delta-10 THC, which are compounds that can produce a high similar to marijuana. The compound that gives marijuana its high is delta-9 THC.<\/p>\n

As with marijuana, the synthetic products take the form of smokable flower, pre-rolled joints, vape oil and edibles. Unlike marijuana, the companies that produce them aren\u2019t subject to the testing, security and labeling requirements attached to the state\u2019s legal medical cannabis market.<\/p>\n

Alternatives not only pose a health risk, the witnesses told the oversight committee, but can cut into demand for medical marijuana since the products can be purchased without a medical marijuana patient card and can be loaded with large enough quantities of THC variants to act as a stand-in for marijuana.<\/p>\n

Congress authorized hemp growing with the 2018 Farm Bill, and South Dakota has become the largest producer of hemp in the country after legalizing it four years ago. In that time period, the availability and variety of hemp-derived marijuana alternatives has exploded.<\/p>\n

The Legislature passed House Bill 1125<\/a>\u00a0last winter to address the \u201cdiet weed\u201d market. The law, which went into effect in July but is being challenged in court, bans the creation or sale of some products created through chemical modification of hemp<\/a>. Possession of the products is still legal.<\/p>\n

The new law bans four THC variants, State Public Health Laboratory Director Tim Southern told the committee, but several others remain available. THC-A products, for example, remain widely available in smoke shops that had previously sold other products that are now illegal to sell.<\/p>\n

Med card slowdown, legislative summer study proposed<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Dakota\u2019s medical marijuana program has seen a drop in patient cardholders since the beginning of the year, which business owners blame in part on the state\u2019s lack of regulatory enforcement of the THC-A products found on store shelves.<\/p>\n

Those stores are \u201cillegal dispensaries selling cannabis under the guise of hemp,\u201d Dakota Herb CEO Dalton Grimmius told South Dakota Searchlight after the meeting.<\/p>\n

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One problem, said committee members who work in law enforcement, is testing capacity in the state.<\/p>\n

Dakota Herb\u2019s Alan Welsh told committee members that the dispensary has had to cut prices of their tested, state-approved product below non-regulated competitor prices to incentivize patients to purchase through legal channels and retain their medical marijuana cards.<\/p>\n

Welsh added that he\u2019s privately tested two \u201chemp\u201d products sold in Sioux Falls. Not only did they have more contaminants than the state allows for medical marijuana, Welsh said, but they also contained more than .03 percent THC by weight\u2014the legal threshold for hemp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have been allowed to sell that product in our store, and yet we\u2019re forced to compete with that,\u201d Welsh said. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee did not take action on the concerns raised at the meeting. Instead, its members suggested that the committee should recommend a legislative summer study. That would have to wait until the summer of 2025, because this summer\u2019s study committees are underway.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers on the committee are concerned any policy recommendations outside of the medical marijuana industry would overstep their own committee\u2019s jurisdiction. The committee may make an official decision and recommendation at its October meeting.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement, lobbyists, health lab leader: Legislature playing \u2018whack-a-mole\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeremiah Murphy, a lobbyist for the state\u2019s cannabis industry, said legalizing \u201ceverything\u201d would offer an opportunity for better regulation and licensing of the products.<\/p>\n

Voters will have the opportunity to do that through a recreational marijuana ballot measure in November.<\/p>\n

Sioux Falls Police Chief John Thum compared policing and regulation of the drugs, such as THC-A, to \u201cwhack-a-mole.\u201d Southern agreed.<\/p>\n

The health lab director was among several witnesses\u2014and committee members\u2014who suggested that a federal fix is necessary. Congress is currently working through a new farm bill, and committee members suggested reaching out to South Dakota\u2019s congressional delegation to ask that the bill\u2019s legal hemp provision clarify that the crop isn\u2019t meant to be used for the production of intoxicants.<\/p>\n

Until the federal government takes action, Southern said, South Dakota should be ready to harness the expertise of its agriculture, health and law enforcement agencies to craft laws around fake pot and its purveyors across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is something we do legislatively, with very smart, well-written legislation that doesn\u2019t allow modern garage chemists to wiggle out from under a law,\u201d Southern said. \u201cOtherwise, it will be nothing but a game of whack-a-mole now and forever more.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was first published by South Dakota Searchlight.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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Americans Say Marijuana Is Less Harmful Than Alcohol Or Tobacco, New Gallup Poll Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Intoxicating Hemp Products Are Undercutting South Dakota Medical Marijuana Sales, Businesses Tell Lawmakers<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have been allowed to sell that product in our store, and yet we\u2019re forced to compete with that.\u201d By Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight South Dakota\u2019s legislative oversight committee on medical marijuana was thrust into the world of synthetic THC on Monday as members heard complaints about howContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77495,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77494\/revisions\/77495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}