In gas stations and vape shops across Mississippi you can find dozens of hemp-based products that promise a “legal high” by mimicking the psychoactive effects of cannabis. Unlike medical cannabis sold in the state, these products are not required to be tested.
During a Senate Public Health Committee hearing, cannabis researchers and health officials told lawmakers that independent testing of these products has shown that many of them pose a public health risk. That risk comes from both the presence of harmful materials in the finished products and much higher THC levels than are advertised.
“We have products all over the state that are open to all age groups that are not really what they’re being touted to be,” State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney said. … “In the testing, we’re seeing pesticides, heavy metals, other adulterants. That’s just not what we need for the public. We don’t allow that in any other sector.”
The House has passed and the Senate is now considering a bill that would require hemp products be tested and their sellers to be licensed. It would also ban cannabinoids synthesized from hemp like Delta-8 that give many of these products their intoxicating effects.
Under current state law, hemp can only have a THC level of 0.3 percent at harvest. However, CBD extracted from that hemp can be synthesized into cannabinoids like Delta-8 that are added to products before they’re sold.
A coalition of around 500 small businesses that sell these hemp products has come out against the legislation in its current form.
Bill Wickstrom is a member of that coalition who owns vape shops across South Mississippi. Wickstrom says he and other members are all for regulations that protect consumers like testing requirements, but not banning federally legal products for adult users.
“You’re basically taking legal products away from them and it’s handing it over to the medical marijuana industry,” Wickstrom said.
The Senate has until March 12 to take up the House’s hemp bill.
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