LEXINGTON, Ky. — An emergency regulations meeting was held earlier this week to give people the opportunity to express concerns over some provisions of House Bill 544, which regulates the sale of delta-8 and other hemp products.
Some regulations prohibit the sale of these products to people under the age of 21 and have added labeling requirements.
CBD Time’s owner, Joe Boese, is particularly worried about the provision that requires every product that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services identifies as having “intoxicating effects” to be tested in a lab.
“It costs a lot of money to test it and with the new regulations, they want to test every product and I have around 700 products in my store and it’s roughly around $1,000 to get these products tested so you can do the math, not many small businesses can afford to do that,” said Boese.
Kentucky Hemp Association’s president Katie Moyer, who is supportive of having regulations to ensure safety and believes the cabinet is on the right track but thinks there needs to be some tweaks. When it comes testing, she wants the original resin when it’s extracted from the plant to be tested for things like chemicals and pesticides that could be dangerous for consumption.
“Once that is tested, and gets split into a hundred pieces, you know, once that batch goes into gummies, and tinctures, and drinks, and all these other different products, those products should already be cleared,” said Moyer.
This would save business owners from having to spend the money on sending all their products to a lab. Boese fears that this provision could put him out of business and keep him from helping customers who are suffering from some of the same health issues that he’s had.
“It’s the best feeling in the world when a customer comes in here and tells you they’ve been suffering for years, and they’ve started using our products and they’ve gotten off of certain medications that was giving them a lot of side effects,” said Boese.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rebecca Raymer, R-Morgantown, said in a statement, “The intent of HB 544 was to restrict the sale of intoxicating hemp (Delta 8, 9, 10) products to minors and provide a safer product to consumers through product testing. I worked in conjunction and with the full support of the Kentucky Hemp Association to pass this measure and hope the executive branch upholds the legislature’s intent.”
Moyer says that the cabinet is pulling regulations from different states that have different laws for this issue, therefore making it difficult to craft the bill. She hopes Kentucky can serve as a model for other states for regulating hemp products.