A new ban on intoxicating hemp goods in California will remain in place for the foreseeable future after a state judge on Friday denied a request by a hemp trade organization and several private companies for a restraining order that would have prevented officials from enforcing the ban.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen Goorvitch issued the ruling denying the request from the U.S. Hemp Roundtable and other hemp businesses after a hearing on Thursday morning and wrote in his order that the hemp plaintiffs “do not demonstrate that these regulations will cause widespread and catastrophic destruction of the hemp industry.”
Rather, Goorvitch found that “at least half” of the Hemp Roundtable’s members have operations outside of California and that there are several options open to the businesses, including selling “non-final food products with detectable levels of THC” or selling hemp-based THC-infused foods through licensed cannabis shops.
“At heart, they complain of lost revenue, which is not persuasive in establishing irreparable harm,” Goorvitch wrote.
Instead, Goorvitch sided with the state and cited several complaints filed with regulators over hemp-based THC goods.
“This potential harm to Californians, especially children, outweighs the potential that individual hemp businesses will not be able to adapt to the new regulations,” the judge wrote.
Goorvitch scheduled a trial setting conference for Nov. 22.
The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, Cheech and Chong’s, Juicetiva, Blaze Life and three other hemp companies last month after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced emergency regulations that would ban any hemp goods that have any detectable level of THC in them, as well as other new strictures. Newsom acted after the state legislature failed to agree on a new hemp regulatory regime in a bill earlier this year.
In a statement Friday, U.S. Hemp Roundtable member Jim Higdon, the co-founder of Cornbread Hemp Co., said the judge “sided against common sense.”
“The governor has made it much more difficult for Californians to access the only cannabis products that consumers can be certain are free of pesticides – USDA certified organic hemp products with third-party lab tests,” Higdon said, referring to a widespread lab-testing scandal that has rocked the California marijuana industry this year.
Higdon pledged that the Roundtable and other stakeholders will continue fighting the ban in court, despite losing the restraining order request, and called the ban “unconstitutional.”
A spokeswoman for Gov. Newsom applauded the ruling by Goorvitch.
“The court didn’t buy this attempt to reopen a loophole used by bad actors in the hemp industry to push dangerous intoxicating products into gas stations and corner markets,” Newsom spokeswoman Tara Gallegos said in an email. “These products remain unlawful for sale. We won’t stop fighting for our kids and their safety – and working to defend the legal and regulated cannabis market.”
Hemp companies have increasingly found themselves fighting similar bans and restrictive rules in various states as the intoxicating hemp sector continues to grow. A similar case in New Jersey resulted in a federal judge partially throwing out a new law that would have barred out-of-state hemp companies from selling their goods in that state after hemp companies sued.
Several hemp companies challenged emergency rules that ban hemp products with any detectable THC. Read More