State. Rep. Dave Hinman, a Republican from O’Fallon, speaks with Jeff Altmann, a lobbyist for the Missouri Hemp Trade Association, about his bill to regulate intoxicating hemp products on Tuesday (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).
A second proposal backed by Missouri’s hemp industry to regulate products like hemp-THC seltzers and edibles was defeated in a House committee Thursday morning, after the hemp-beverage distributor who helped draft the bill emailed committee members that morning asking them to kill it.
The 5-7 vote in the House General Laws committee came after Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon, the bill sponsor, spent hours last week trying to come up with a compromise among the splintered hemp industry leaders on regulations.
The same committee voted down a bill backed by the Missouri Hemp Trade Association last week in a 1-13 vote.
After that defeat, Hinman incorporated a number of the hemp association’s requests into an amended version of his bill, which he presented Thursday. State Rep. Ben Keathley of Chesterfield, the chair of the committee, applauded Hinman’s attempt to bring the hemp leaders together.
“A lot of interests are working against each other in this bill, and it’s very difficult to come up with something that everyone’s going to be happy with,” Keathley said. “I think the bill sponsor put together a good package that allows us to do the most important thing of protecting Missouri children.”
Hinman’s amended bill addressed some of the concerns committee members had about costs of testing and increased the sales tax on these products to be the same as marijuana products, 6%. The bill also addressed concerns by hemp companies, he said, by allowing small-scale beverage manufacturers to self distribute and increased the maximum amount of THC per container.
But the fatal flaw that bill drafter Steven Busch, owner of Krey Distributing, could not support was allowing the continued sale of THC-A flower, which looks and acts very similar to marijuana buds.
Busch said he’s had discussions with Hinman previously about his concerns that THC-A is an unstable compound of the cannabis plant that becomes intoxicating when heated. And that process can happen when it sits on the shelf too long, he told committee members in emails and text messages Thursday morning.
Hinman told the committee he spoke with several industry experts who advised him the instability could be addressed by proper packaging requirements, which the bill included.
Earlier this week, Busch had told Hinman, whom he says he still highly respects, that he was pulling his support for the bill.
“It would really jeopardize the whole industry if they keep trying to push THC-A as hemp,” Busch told The Independent in an interview Thursday. “If somebody wants a product like that, they can very easily get it at a dispensary and that’s where it should be obtained.”
The two defeats essentially knocked the hemp industry out of the race to get regulations passed, clearing a path for two opposing bills backed by the marijuana industry.
The Missouri Cannabis Trade Association’s two bills, which have both gained approval by House and Senate committees, would ban intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of marijuana dispensaries – with the exception of hemp beverages, such as THC seltzers currently sold in bars and liquor stores.
Busch said he’s now switched his support to the MoCann bills, sponsored by Republicans state Rep. Chad Perkins of Bowling Green and state Sen. Nick Schroer of Defiance. His company distributes 11 different hemp beverages in eastern Missouri.
“They have all the protections that we need for our consumers and businesses in there to make the product safe and properly regulated,” Busch said. “So I feel very confident that if they do pass, we’re going to be in great shape. If they don’t pass, we’re going to be in no man’s land again.”
Hinman’s bill allows beverages, edibles and vapes to continue to be sold outside of dispensaries, but be licensed and regulated under the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. Hinman said it was designed to protect about 2,000 hemp companies that will be “destroyed” under the MoCann bills.
Hinman respects Busch’s work on his bill to try to protect the entire hemp industry, he said, and acknowledged that Busch could have chosen early on to simply protect the hemp beverage industry, which is what the MoCann bills do.
With his and Baker’s bill now out, Hinman said lawmakers will be faced with a very hard decision.
“The choice is to put all these family businesses out of business and put their employees out of work,” he said, “and again feed into what I call a corporate monopoly, or to do something to protect kids.”
The Missouri Hemp Trade Association has opposed every bill except Baker’s, which only set an age restriction on purchasing the products in its final draft.
Currently, there’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy intoxicating hemp products or stores can’t sell them to minors — though some stores and vendors have taken it upon themselves to impose age restrictions of 21 and up.
The products lawmakers are trying to regulate have THC derived from hemp – which often comes from outside of Missouri – and face no government oversight. In contrast, marijuana must be grown in Missouri, and the plants are tracked from seed to sale by state regulators.
While the two products have the same effect, they fall differently under federal law. Federally, marijuana is a controlled substance, and hemp is legal – though several states have passed laws to prohibit intoxicating hemp products. Missouri legislators have tried for the past two years to do that as well.
The main challenge the MoCann bills face is another year of complete inaction by lawmakers to regulate these products, said Andrew Mullins, executive director of MoCann. He believes his group’s proposals address public health and safety and protect hemp businesses.
“That’s why I believe we’re still advancing and our coalition is building,” Mullins said, “versus the disintegration of these various voices and needs.”
Hinman said last week he sat down with several hemp association members and the group’s three lobbyists, along with two lobbyists who represent individual hemp businesses.
He incorporated a number of the association’s requests, he said, including the THC-A provision.
“I made changes to my bill in good faith that they would be on board,” he said of the association, “which now I regret making changes for them, as I think that’s part of the big problem of why my bill was defeated.”
Baker also expressed frustration with the association during a committee hearing last week when his bill was defeated.
Jeff Smith, the hemp association’s lobbyist, said that while organization doesn’t support Hinman’s bill it appreciates his efforts to “craft a compromise, and we definitely plan to continue conversations to try and reach one.”
Hinman, however, said for him and Baker, this is the end of the road.
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