Todd Harris started Plift, his Kansas City-based company selling hemp-derived THC beverages, to give people a socially acceptable alternative to alcohol.
Harris himself is an alcoholic in recovery. Now, he’s worried he’ll have to shutter his company — and leave his customers in the lurch — because of a new federal provision limiting the amount of THC allowed in hemp products.
“I don't want someone who struggles with alcoholism to feel like they might have to turn back to alcohol, because something that they found to be a better product or a better solution for them has now been taken away,” said Harris.
The provision, included in the bill that reopened the government after the longest federal shutdown in history, goes into effect in one year and will limit the amount of THC in hemp products to 0.4 milligrams per container.
The U.S. legalized hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill, but this provision targets a loophole that allows manufacturers to scientifically increase the concentration of a legal amount of THC.
THC is the intoxicating substance found in hemp and marijuana plants. While hemp naturally contains less THC content than marijuana, the law only targets hemp products — because they are less regulated.
Unlike for marijuana, no laws keep minors from buying intoxicating hemp products like gummies or drinks that are sold beyond dispensaries, in places like convenience stores and gas stations, unless the state imposes them.
“None of us in the industry would deny that we want regulatory certainty and some packaging, labeling, testing requirements that should be broadly implemented and accepted across the industry,” said Harris. “We are all about consumer safety, but we're also about consumer choice.”
While the restrictions on THC content targeted at intoxicating products like beverages and gummies, they will also affect other hemp-derived products containing THC that help with health issues.
Nathan Madden is director of operations at Emerald Med CBD, a Kansas City company that makes hemp-derived CBD products for doctors’ offices and pharmacies.
Emerald Med CBD produces CBD gummies, oils, and supplements that help with pain relief, sleep and relaxation. These types of hemp products are often used by people dealing with chronic pain or PTSD — many of them veterans, like members of Madden’s family. After the new law is implemented, Emerald Med CBD won’t be able to make these products anymore.
“I’m staring, right here on my desk, at a pile of CBD balm that we manufacture,” said Madden. “All of this balm would become illegal with the new laws, but you could take a bubble bath in this stuff, and you'd never be high.”
Madden says the new restrictions would be “a death blow” to people in the industry, who had no time to suggest alternatives to the provision because they only heard about its inclusion days before it passed. He says a lot of people he knows were too devastated to pick up their phones the day after the law passed.
The ban goes into effect exactly one year from when it passed on Nov. 12.
“During these 365 days, while we still have the freedom to give people options, we're just going to work hard to educate people on what's actually happening and what we're going to lose as a nation,” said Madden.
