Last week, I wrote a post entitled “Loper Comes For the DEA. Will it Matter Though?” In that post, I discussed a brand new federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case that concluded that hemp derivatives like THC-O are not controlled substances. The hemp community has largely celebrated this as a win, even though as I wrote in that post and back in July, none of this really matters if Congress bans intoxicating hemp products – which looks like it will happen.
On the heels of the Fourth Circuit case, a few things happened that don’t make life easier for people who want intoxicating hemp products.
Probably the most significant of the bad news, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued emergency regulations to ban a series of intoxicating hemp products. A lot has been written about these regulations, but it’s worth pointing out that California’s hemp law (AB-45) was already not very favorable to smokable hemp products.
For example, AB-45 already prohibits smokable hemp products. And more notably, it defines THC to include THCA and “any tetrahydrocannabinol, including, but not limited to, Delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and Delta-10-tetrahydrocannabinol, however derived”. In other words, all of the various things that are