It has been eight years since Californians voted to legalize marijuana through Proposition 64. To the surprise of no one, California managed to completely botch the legalization and regulation of marijuana.
Overregulation, high taxes and bureaucratic hurdles thrown in front of people willing to comply with the law have kept the black market as robust as ever.
The failure of the state to make it easier for lawful operators to do business, coupled with a 2018 change in federal law which legalized industrial hemp, unleashed a booming market for hemp products.
Since California law regulates intoxicating hemp products separately from the legal marijuana market, many manufacturers who would have otherwise been complying with state marijuana laws have gone around them by making intoxicating products derived from hemp instead.
But another popular market for hemp products has been for products using hemp-derived CBD for the treatment of various ailments without intoxicating effects.
Rather than learn from the mistakes of the past, however, Gov. Gavin Newsom requested, and on Monday received, an emergency ban on consumable hemp products containing any detectable levels of THC.
This effectively bans both intoxicating hemp products and non-intoxicating, therapeutic hemp products. Adults 21 and older will still be allowed to buy hemp products, but they, too, can’t contain any level of THC.
People relying on such products for therapeutic purposes will “still be able to obtain cannabis-derived products with THC through licensed adult-use and medical cannabis dispensaries.” However, some have expressed concern that they will have a hard time finding therapeutic products at state-licensed dispensaries on-par with what they can currently get from hemp products.
Newsom’s heavy-handed approach undermines choice and personal freedom. There’s an obvious middle ground here: require intoxicating products to be sold only to adults (the same as marijuana and alcohol) and lightly regulate consumable hemp products with common sense safety standards in mind. But Newsom, as is often the case, goes about things the wrong way.