Lots of forward progress at the legislature
1. BILL HEARINGS
→ On Friday, March 18, the House Health Finance and Policy Committee approved H.F. 3595 (Edelson), the Board of Pharmacy’s bill on the regulation of products containing cannabinoids. The bill was approved on a 14-3 vote. All DFL members as well as GOP members Joe Schomacker (Luverne), Jeff Backer (Brown Valley), and Duane Quam (Byron) voted to approve. GOP members Lisa Demuth (Cold Spring), Debra Kiel (Crookston), and Jeremy Munson (Lake Crystal) voted to reject. Reps. Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) and Susan Akland (R-St. Peter) were not present to vote. The approved bill has been referred to the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee for its next hearing. The bill’s senate companion, S.F. 3761 (Koran), has not been scheduled for a hearing.
The approved bill (a) closes the Loveless Loophole by clarifying that products containing non-intoxicating cannabinoids extracted from hemp are not Schedule I controlled substances as long as they contain less than 0.3% THC, (b) authorizes the sale of edible cannabinoid products subject to specific marketing and packaging requirements, (c) limits the sale of hemp-derived products meant for human consumption to individuals aged 21 and older, (d) allows product manufacturers to supply required labeling information via barcode or QR code, and (e) clarifies that it is the products containing cannabinoids that must be tested, not just the hemp from which the cannabinoids are extracted. A detailed summary of the bill prepared by House Research is available here.
Friday’s hearing can be viewed here and included testimony from Board of Pharmacy Executive Director Cody Wiberg, Sensible Change Minnesota Policy Director Maren Schroeder, Nothing But Hemp owner and MN Cannabis Association board member Steven Brown, and Sutherland CBD’s James Sutherland.
Sensible Change also submitted a letter to the committee expressing general support for the bill with the exception of the following concern: “We are, however, concerned about the unnecessary inclusion and ambiguity of the word ‘non-intoxicating’ found in Minn. Stat. 151.72, and any hemp derived tetrahydrocannabinol products currently on the market that would not be regulated under this framework. What we would prefer to see is a definitive definition of ‘intoxicating’ to be products with over 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinols by weight – similar to how we define ‘intoxicating liquor’ as being over 3.2% alcohol by volume.”
As testified to by Steven Brown, the Minnesota Cannabis Association’s position is that the bill is “politically-focused” rather than safety-focused and constitutes regulatory overreach that will harm the hemp industry. The group also submitted a letter to the committee urging the formation of a working group that includes hemp industry representatives as well as hemp product consumers to come up with a better set of regulations. That letter also outlines the Cannabis Association’s initial recommendations for what those regulations should include.
→ On Tuesday, March 22, the House Health Finance and Policy Committee laid over H.F. 4387 (Gomez) as amended for possible inclusion in the House Health Finance Omnibus Bill. The amended bill eliminates the state’s statutorily-mandated medical cannabis manufacturing duopoly by requiring that the Department of Health register at least 4 and up to 10 medical cannabis manufacturers. The bill also establishes equity considerations for the selection of registered manufacturers and requirements that the registered manufacturers be incorporated in Minnesota and enter into a labor peace agreement. The bill has no senate companion.
A detailed summary of the amended bill prepared by House Research is available here.
Tuesday’s hearing can be viewed here and included testimony from Sensible Change Minnesota Policy Director Maren Schroeder, medical cannabis patient Dale Moerke, and Brian Jones, a Minnesota plant scientist whose company Charcoal holds a medical cannabis manufacturing license in Massachusetts. Letters of support submitted to the committee from Sensible Change MN and UFCW Local 1189, the union that represents Minnesota’s cannabis industry workers, can be viewed here.
→ On Tuesday, March 22, the House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee approved H.F. 1355 (Gomez), a bill to reduce the penalties for possession of small amounts of cannabis mixtures, as amended. The bill was approved on a 13-3 vote. All DFL members as well as GOP members Cal Bahr (R-East Bethel), John Heinrich (R-Anoka), and Nolan West (R-Blaine) voted to approve. GOP members John Petersburg (R-Waseca), Bjorn Olson (R-Elmore), and Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska) voted to reject. The approved bill has been referred back to the House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Finance and Policy Committee, which heard and approved the bill early this month. The bill’s senate companion, S.F. 2348 (Abeler) has not been scheduled for a hearing.
The approved bill (a) modifies the definition of a “small amount” of marijuana to include eight grams or less of any non-flower marijuana mixture, (b) prohibits the weight of fluids used in water pipes from being used to determine weight of marijuana mixtures, (c) authorizes expungement of records for violations that would have been petty misdemeanors under the law change, (d) ends driver's license revocations for persons who commit low-level marijuana offenses, and (e) allocates additional funding from the trunk highway fund to pay for additional State Patrol staffing to manage records. A detailed summary of the approved bill prepared by House Research is available here.
Tuesday’s hearing can be viewed here and included testimony from Nick Morrow from the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, criminal defense attorney Tom Gallagher, and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans. Letters of support submitted to the committee can be viewed here.
Last Friday, KSTP aired a segment on the bill and how it fixes the gap in Minnesota’s law that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of cannabis flower but leaves it a felony to possess any amount of all other forms of cannabis such as edibles and vape cartridges.
2. LATEST BILL INTRODUCTIONS
→ On Monday, March 21, Reps. Aisha Gomez (DFL-Minneapolis), Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington), Jay Xiong introduced (DFL-St. Paul), Hodan Hassan (DFL-Minneapolis), Erin Koegel (DFL-Spring Lake Park), and Andrew Carlson (DFL-Bloomington) introduced H.F. 4501, a bill to create a licensing structure for medical cannabis businesses that breaks apart the current vertical integration model. The bill has been referred to the House Health Finance and Policy Committee. It has no senate companion.
Hot take from Sensible Change’s Maren Schroeder: This is the direction we would like to see Minnesota go, but we’re just out of time this year to advance this bill. Pursuing the more incremental expansion to the market in H.F. 4387 (the Gomez bill to eliminate the medical cannabis duopoly) will buy us time to create a better comprehensive structure in the future.
Another thing to note: Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington) removed himself as an author yesterday. Our best guess based on his past statements is that he objects to the bill’s equity provisions.
3. LOCAL MEDIA PUBLISHES NATIONAL STORY ON SYNTHETIC THC REGLATORY HEADACHE
→ Today, the Star Tribune published an article and Kare 11 posted a video both from the Associated Press on the regulatory challenges posed by synthetically derived THC, including so-called delta-8 THC. The stories cover how products containing synthetically derived THC exist in a legal gray area federally and have been banned in at least 17 states but upheld as legal by courts in two states. The stories also focus on how this issue pits the interests of hemp growers against those of hemp product retailers.
The AP’s coverage of this issue is timely and relevant in Minnesota on the heels of the Board of Pharmacy’s vote last week to adopt a scheduling order that removes tetrahydrocannabinols that fall under the state’s statutory definition of hemp (which matches that of the federal government) from the list of Schedule I controlled substances but also adds all synthetic cannabinoids to that Schedule I list.