Lincoln, Neb. – Kind Life Dispensary has been offering cannabinoid gommies, tinctures, ointments, now even canned drinks for seven years as one of the first businesses in Nebraska in offering such products. The founder and co -owner, Andrea Watkins, said that her company has had great success, and now has three locations in the capital of Nebraska that employ eight people and sell hundreds of regular customers who use products to treat everything, from pains and pains to anxiety and post -traumatic stress disorder.
But now, he is concerned that his livelihood collapses while a bill makes its way through the Nebraska Legislature would prohibit most of the products it sells.
The Nebraska bill would criminalize the sale and possession of a variety of products that contain hemp Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the same compound that gives marijuana its psychoactive properties. Any product containing more than a total weight of 0.3% THC or more than 10 milligrams in total per package would be prohibited.
“If that bill becomes law? We would have to close,” Watkins said recently in his flagship store that looks like a cross between a pharmacy and a spa.
He suspects that many of the more than 300 companies throughout the state offer similar products since hemp was legalized under the 2018 Federal farm invoice I could face the same destination. This agricultural bill created a legal lagoon that allows manufacturers to synthesize THC of hemp plants and sell it in products where marijuana is not legal to sell.
As the bill is currently written, it would even prohibit topical products as lotions and creams containing THC for boring and muscle pains, which leads opponents to accuse the sponsors of the bill to make grandparents’ criminals seeking a treatment for arthritis.
“What happens to all grandmothers who have some type of CBD with Delta-8 in the back of their first aid myself?” The Senator of Omaha, Wendy Deboer, asked during the recent debate on the Nebraska bill, and added that the bill “would make criminals of all grandmothers” using products with THC based on hemp for joint pain.
The Nebraska bill includes a period of grace until the end of 2025 to allow people who have such products to arrange them.
Republican legislators behind the Nebraska bill say that it is necessary to protect people, especially children, of dangerous products that use synthetic cannabinoids “disguised in hemp” and are infused in food and drinks with flavors of sweets and fruits. Several legislators transmitted children’s accounts and others who suffered harmful effects and even hospitalization after consuming products containing synthesized THC.
But those equivalent to fear tactics that erroneously characterize the benefits of the products, said Dr. Andrea Holmes, an expert in organic chemistry with emphasis on cannabis. Holmes is co -owner of the kind dispensaries of life and has traveled through the country that promotes regulated cannabis and cannabinoid products.
“What they neglect in these cases of those who speak is that the person has also taken another substance or has some underlying problem that leads to their condition,” said Holmes. “Our products are not dangerous.”
The opponents of the bill say that it is part of an effort of years of state Republicans, including the attorney general of Nebraska, Mike Hilgers, to criminalize hemp products and frustrate the growing efforts to legalize marijuana both in Nebraska and throughout the country. Dozens of states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. In November, voters in Nebraska overwhelmingly approved the use of medicinal marijuana.
“We need to see that fact. Most people want this type of products,” said Holmes.
Until now, Nebraska legislators have rejected the efforts of the state senator of Omaha, John Cavanaugh, a Democrat, to supplant the prohibition bill with a measure that would require a strict regulation of consumables based on hemp, as several other states have done. The Nebraska Hemprup Industries Association supports Cavanaugh’s effort to regulate the industry.
Cavanaugh and supporters of his measure say that prohibiting hemp products at a time when the State suffers a dramatic income deficit would simply hit the state coffers stronger.
Cannabinoid companies derived from hemp employ more than 1,600 people in Nebraska and provide a tax revenue potential of almost $ 8 million to the state, Cavanaugh said, citing figures from the National Report of National Cannabinoids of the United States 2023.
Despite the decriminalization of hemp and the approval of the voters of some uses of marijuana, Hilgers has been crossing the state aimed at companies that sell cannabinoid products based on hemp. Many stores have received cards of cessation and withdrawal. Some have been subject to the application of the law. Hilgers insists that he is protecting the public from hazardous products and unscrupulous distributors that operate with the naked eye.
“With our new complaints, we are increasing our efforts to clean Nebraska,” Hilgers said in September, when he demanded four businesses in Norfolk selling consumables based on hemp. “These stores are cheating the Nebraskanos. None of the products we tried were labeled precisely and many contained controlled substances.”
Nebraska is far from being alone in the impulse to restrict access to consumable hemp and other THC products. It joins a series of other states where similar efforts are to regulate, criminalize or prohibit these products, including Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.
But states led by Democrat have also led efforts to restrict hemp products. In California, where the recreational use of marijuana is legal and very regulated and taxed, regulators issued a prohibition last year on food and beverage products with THC derived from hemp, citing health problems.
