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\u201cWhat this does is, it modernizes our cannabis and hemp laws to reflect today\u2019s market realities.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n By Emilia Otte, CT Mirror<\/strong><\/p>\n A bill revamping regulations around the cannabis market passed the House of Representatives Monday night after a debate over what some lawmakers saw as a loosening of important restrictions on cannabis sales, and what others saw as logical modifications to a system that was placing barriers in front of a growing market.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat this does is, it modernizes our cannabis and hemp laws to reflect today\u2019s market realities,\u201d said Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, during the debate.<\/p>\n Regulating cannabis in Connecticut has provoked contentious debates since lawmakers narrowly voted<\/a> to legalize the substance for recreational use in 2021. Since then, the legislature has made several adjustments to the law,<\/a> regulating the sale of THC-infused beverages and banning promotional sales or discounts, for example, or placing new parameters around the sale of hemp products<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current bill would raise or eliminate THC limits on certain products, including cannabis flower and infused beverages, and open up the market to new products and to people who live out-of-state.<\/p>\n Lemar said that the bill brings Connecticut in line with regulations in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThis is a burgeoning marketplace here in Connecticut, creating a lot of jobs and a lot of investment. And the federal regulations that were put into place last year restricted the ability for that business to function, to move forward. We\u2019re creating a strong pathway here for an infused beverage marketplace,\u201d said Lemar.<\/p>\n He said the bill cleaned up some of the regulations that made it hard for businesses to function and \u201crestricted business potential.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Lemar, the legal cannabis market has created hundreds of jobs and brought tens of millions of dollars in revenue to the state.<\/p>\n \u201cMake no mistake about it. A Connecticut business in this space is at a severe disadvantage to those that exist in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island,\u201d said Lemar. \u201cThey cannot compete on an even playing field because we have stacked the deck against them.\u201d<\/p>\n But Rep. David Rutigliano, R-Trumbull, said during a press conference that marijuana had now joined a \u201ccapitalist market\u201d being driven by large corporations.<\/p>\n One of the changes that received pushback is the elimination of caps on THC content in cannabis flower, plant material or concentrates. Rutigliano said higher concentrations of THC would make it easier for people to become addicted. He noted that public health professionals who appeared at a public hearing on the bill also brought concerns about THC levels.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat these medical people were saying, and they said it over and over and over again\u2014\u2018Whatever you do, don\u2019t raise the limits on THC. That\u2019s what\u2019s getting the kids sick, that\u2019s causing psychosis\u2026 That\u2019s causing all the problems that we have right now, is that the stuff is just too strong,\u2019\u201d said Rutigliano.<\/p>\n Lemar said that cannabis plants have their own natural limits on THC concentration, and that \u201cwatering down\u201d the cannabis could actually be more dangerous because it involves substances that have not been tested or regulated.<\/p>\n The bill also increases the amount of THC allowed in infused drinks from 3 mg to 5 mg. Drinks sold in dispensaries or retailers can have up to 10 mg of THC.<\/p>\n House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said during a press conference that he was against raising the THC levels in these products.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are concerned about the mental health impacts on our children. When we talk about the science, we continue to hear [about] the psychosis and the health conditions that are caused from overuse of marijuana, and our hospitals and really our infrastructure does not have the beds for treatment, and that should be the conversation that we\u2019re having today,\u201d said Candelora.<\/p>\n Rutigliano at one point raised an amendment that would have kept the caps on THC content in cannabis products.<\/p>\n Rep. Chris Aniskovich, R-Clinton, told the story of his stepson, who died of a drug overdose at 26. He said his stepson began smoking cannabis at age 14 and later started using more serious drugs. He said his whole family went through therapy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you sit there and you listen to the therapists that tell you, \u2018Marijuana\u2019s not a gateway,\u2019\u201d said Aniskovich. \u201cNobody knows how a child, when they start smoking marijuana, that is going to affect their brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than focusing on losing money to other states, Aniskovich said, the state should be focusing on keeping cannabis out of the hands of young people and addressing mental health issues.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is bad legislation. It\u2019s bad legislation for our state. To put money ahead of our state is a problem,\u201d said Aniskovich.<\/p>\n The amendment failed by six votes.<\/p>\n House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said the concerns he\u2019d heard from Rutigliano about mental health and psychosis were \u201clegitimate\u201d but that other states were selling infused drinks at higher potency levels. He said that, even at 5 milligrams, the potency limit was still conservative compared to other states.<\/p>\n Lemar added that the dangers and concerns about addiction and overdose were being driven not by the legal cannabis market but by the products being sold illegally in bodegas and gas stations. The House is considering a second bill targeting smoke shops and vape shops that sell illegal products. He said that eliminating caps on products like cannabis flower would move people out of the illegal marketplace and into the legal marketplace.<\/p>\n \u201cAllowing our regulated marketplace to sell products that are in demand, that are safe, that are sold in surrounding states, moves people to a much safer product,\u201d said Lemar.<\/p>\n During the debate Monday evening, Rep. Tom O\u2019Dea, R-New Canaan, read from a study done<\/a> at Massachusetts General Hospital and published in November that found that the number of teenagers presenting at the ER with psychiatric symptoms quadrupled after the state legalized recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is shocking, disturbing, and should cause us all to pause,\u201d said O\u2019Dea.<\/p>\n Lemar noted that many of the incidents of children and teens getting sick involved illegal cannabis products that had skirted the state regulations.<\/p>\n The bill also \u200aexpands the cannabis marketplace to include topicals, tablets and capsules and allows patients who come from out of state to purchase cannabis for medical reasons.<\/p>\n Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, said she was concerned that this bill would spark a new crisis of addiction by making these \u201cpalliative use\u201d products \u201cavailable to the general public on a whim.\u201d<\/p>\n Lemar countered that these products were some of the most commonly used substances for treating pain and that being able to sell them in Connecticut would stop people from illegally transporting them across state lines.<\/p>\n Rep. Tracy Marra, R-Darien, questioned changes in the bill reducing the number of hours a licensed pharmacist has to be on site. The bill stipulates that retailers must have a pharmacist on site 8 hours per week and available for video consultation for 35 hours weekly. The bill also broadens who can dispense cannabis to include not just pharmacists but technicians and other employees that work at dispensaries.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some of the sickest of the sick patients that go into these facilities and require help,\u201d she said. \u201cThe role of a pharmacist goes beyond handing over the cannabis\u2014they are looking at drug interactions that might occur.\u201d<\/p>\n Marra objected to the idea that the Department of Consumer Protection would be responsible for approving products like topicals, tablets and sublingual capsules.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the state of Connecticut to take on this role, it\u2019s above and beyond what I think we should be doing here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on CT Mirror<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>. The post Connecticut Lawmakers Pass Bill To Remove Marijuana Product THC Limits<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this does is, it modernizes our cannabis and hemp laws to reflect today\u2019s market realities.\u201d By Emilia Otte, CT Mirror A bill revamping regulations around the cannabis market passed the House of Representatives Monday night after a debate over what some lawmakers saw as a loosening of important restrictionsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":85857,"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\/85856"}],"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=85856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85858,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85856\/revisions\/85858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/cropped-CTMirror_bug_rgb-180x180-1.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Connecticut Lawmakers Pass Bill To Remove Marijuana Product THC Limits<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"