Lawmakers tried to strike a balance at Tuesday’s Joint Judiciary Committee meeting in Casper: How do they control delta-8 without harming hemp?
Both industries have proliferated in Wyoming in recent years. Delta-8 grew in part as an alternative to marijuana that’s now sold in stores across the state, despite its murky legality. And hemp has blossomed with the support of state officials as a non-intoxicating cash crop for Wyoming.
The committee tabled two proposed bills Tuesday that would have affected hemp products and delta-8 and asked legislative staffers to rework language to better reflect what they want. Lawmakers acknowledged both measures had caused confusion and concern amongst the public.
Namely, the committee should focus on filling loopholes in laws around psychoactive substances like delta-8, but “not inadvertently create an impediment to our hemp production for textiles and soap additives and all the rest,” said Rep. Art Washut (R-Casper), co-chair of the committee.
The loophole Washut mentioned involves how hemp products are legal as long as they don’t contain more than 0.3% of something called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the psychoactive substance in marijuana.
Delta-8 is chemically similar to delta-9-THC, but is being extracted from hemp and tends to produce more mild effects. Hemp naturally has small amounts of the substance.
If the delta-8 is produced synthetically — which it is most of the time — it’s technically illegal in Wyoming already, but according to Wyoming’s crime lab personnel, they can’t determine whether delta-8 was synthetically or naturally made. That makes prosecutions hard.
“There isn’t a scientific test we can do right now to prove [delta-8’s origins],” said Sarah Barrett, drug chemistry and toxicology supervisor at the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory.
There have been reported instances of Wyoming teens taking what they believed was delta-8 and landing in the emergency room. But without regulation, it can be hard to determine exactly what’s on shelves, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that delta-8 can be created using harmful chemicals.
Hemp testimony
Hemp business owners expressed mixed feelings about delta-8 on Tuesday, but they welcomed efforts to keep it out of the hands of teens and supported the introduction of more regulations to ensure hemp products are safe.
Rachelle and David Tabor have hemp stores in both Colorado and Wyoming. They said per Colorado law, they have to get third-party certificates of analysis for all products, which detect potency and contaminants. That’s not required in Wyoming.
“Honestly, a bill needs to come forward that [hemp retailers] need a COA for every product that they have,” Rachelle Tabor said.
Others suggested lawmakers decriminalize marijuana to solve the problem of synthetic or modified substances like delta-8.
“The whole reason delta-8 has been created or has caught on with so much popularity is because of the ongoing prohibition against marijuana.”
Marcus Jones, Platte Hemp Company
“The whole reason delta-8 has been created or has caught on with so much popularity is because of the ongoing prohibition against marijuana,” said Marcus Jones, an employee of Platte Hemp Company. “This was a loophole to give the community what they want, and we’ve seen a huge rise in people wanting cannabis-related products.”
Casper City Council member Kyle Gamroth noted the history of U.S. marijuana restrictions, which stemmed in part from racism against Mexicans. Speaking as a private citizen, Gamroth added that alcohol has caused far more problems than marijuana in Casper, calling the Legislature’s approval of more bar and grill licenses hypocritical.
“If the intent of keeping a drug’s usage illegal is based on the level of danger that it presents to our society, then alcohol should absolutely be criminalized to a greater extent than cannabis,” he said. “Here in Natrona county, alcohol is involved in 80% of our traffic crashes, 25% of domestic violence incidents, and 38.5% of overall crime.”
“In Teton County, 84% of all crime is alcohol involved,” he added. “Other drugs, 7.3%.”
The Joint Judiciary Committee next meets in November in Douglas.
The post Wyoming lawmakers look to control delta-8 without harming hemp appeared first on WyoFile.
