ST. PAUL — Some of Minnesota’s congressional Democrats pledged Monday, Nov. 24, to try to reverse what is being called an outright ban on hemp-derived THC products, passed with the reopening of the federal government after a 43-day shutdown.
Minnesota’s legal hemp-derived THC industry launched in 2022, setting limits for beverages of no more than 10 mg per container and up to 50 mg for products such as edibles — drastically different from the 0.4 mg THC limit that passed in the shutdown deal set to go into effect in a year.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar said as the lead Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and with Sen. Tina Smith also sitting on that committee, the two are in a “good position” to try to fix the ban.
“That’s not easy to say in Washington right now, but we may have a farm bill that’s going to be coming through at some point,” Klobuchar said. “We’ll have other vehicles where we can do something to fix this.”
Klobuchar said hemp products brought in $16 million in tax revenue through September.
“This is what a responsible, growing, Minnesota-made market looks like, but in a last-minute move, Republicans added a provision to the budget bills that pulled the rug out from underneath this growing market,” Smith said. “And this happened, as Amy said, without hearings, without any input from people from Minnesota, without any real understanding of how these markets work.”
Potential economic impacts
The congresswomen were joined by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, who authored Minnesota’s bill to legalize cannabis.
Frey said 650 businesses across Minneapolis will be “dramatically impacted,” and around 150 of those 650 businesses will be shut entirely because hemp-derived products are the only products sold.
There are currently 5,300 retailers licensed to sell hemp-derived products in the state, Smith said. And U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, added that experts say the new limit could wipe out 90% to 95% of those products.
Bob Galligan, director of government and industry for Minnesota Craft Brewers, estimates the state will lose 2,700 jobs in 353 days if the ban goes into effect.
“That is 23% of all the jobs provided by the brewing industry in the state of Minnesota; we lost 23% of all of our breweries. That would only leave 183. The last time Minnesota had 183 breweries was in 2018, right around the time that the federal farm bill that legalized these products with a hemp pen,” he said.
“That language and language that passed in the state in 2022 opened what we in the industry refer to as the Wild West,” he added. “But if you’ve ever studied history, you know the West is no longer lawless. As alcohol producers, we know that prohibition does not work; responsible regulation does.”
Getting the votes in Congress
The vote in the U.S. Senate to strike the language on THC limits was 76-24. Klobuchar said she wouldn’t look at that vote as “end all be all,” as it was late at night and there was a general “lack of information” on the vote. She said it also wasn’t an “up or down” vote on the issue itself, as the vote was tied to the reopening of the government.
“Oftentimes, when lobbyists are trying to get something through that is not popular with the American people, they will do it in the dark of the night, because they know that they want to be the only person that members hear from, that they’re not hearing from their constituents and getting that opportunity to actually look into it,” Omar said.
Omar said her office has reached out to the Republicans in Minnesota’s delegation.
“We know that Rep. Tom Emmer understands just how much the industry is vital to the economy of Minnesota, so he’s much more amenable than the others, but … we continue to work with them, trying to make the impression that this is, as you’ve heard from the industry leaders, this is an economic issue.”