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A Senate committee on Wednesday approved a House bill to regulate CBD and hemp products, but the committee chair said the House bill is merely a vehicle for a piecemeal creation of the Senate’s making.
Sen. Lance Bell, chair of the Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Development, told lawmakers that various Senate bills that have passed through committees have been “held back” in order to piece them together into a singular vision of regulations on cannabinoids in the state.
“All those bills are being held so we have one bill and one bill only,” Bell said. “The House has already passed (HB445) so I think we use that as the vehicle and come up with a Senate version … hopefully we can come up with one bill that we all kind of agree on and go from there.”
There have been at least four other bills regulating hemp introduced in the Senate including SB273 by Sen. April Weaver, R-Alabaster, SB255 by Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Bimringham and SB237 and SB132 by Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence. All of those bills except for SB132 passed through Senate committees, with wide variations on how to regulate the industry.
Bell said that Senators are still in the “gathering phase” and that everyone would be brought to the table, including representatives of the industry that told lawmakers Wednesday that HB445, sponsored by Rep. Andy Whitt, R-Harvest, would regulate the industry out of existence.
Molly Cole, a representative for the Alabama Hemp and Vape Association, told APR that she is not convinced that the “compromise bill” under construction will result in anything workable for the industry.
“I told them what would be the bare minimum that businesses need to stay open,” Cole said. “I was basically told on every point that there’s no way that will happen … The compromise will really be a backhanded prohibition bill that will cancel an entire industry. And I was told that’s kind of the point.”
Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, specifically requested to be recorded as a “no” vote on the bill which the committee approved by voice vote, citing the murky plans that Senators have for the substitute moving forward.
One thing that critics could agree on is that HB445 will kill the state’s CBD and hemp industry. By and large, opponents of the bill supported some level of regulation, but argued that this version of regulation is far too broad and treats CBD too strictly.
“It ought to be beer and wine versus a liquor,” said Mitch Hungerpiller, CEO of Easy Hemp Company in Birmingham. The bill would restrict even non-psychoactive CBD and hemp-derived products to be restricted to stores catering exclusively to clientele 21 and over (like package stores or standalone CBD stores).
“If this bill is passed the way it is, it’s going to effect over $100 million in current small business revenue and the taxes, and it’s going to bankrupt over 1,000 small businesses,” Hungerpiller said. “Grocery stores are going to have 20- to 30-foot sections of their store shelves empty.”
Ocean Jones, owner of four CBD stores in the state, said the bill’s provision limiting individual CBD gummies to 5 mg of THC is an arbitrary limit that will drive consumers to the underground market for something stronger, sacrificing all tax revenue to be made from the products and creating access to riskier products.
There are numerous provisions in the bill that critics worry will wipe out the industry including an all-out ban on inhalable products including flowers and vape products, a 10 percent excise tax and a requirement that all products sold in the state be derived from Alabama-grown hemp.
Roger Crawford, owner of the Sunmed location in Orange Beach, called HB445 a “backdoor ban” that would “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“I represent the baby,” Crawford said.
The disparate bills the Senate is weighing alongside input from lobbyists are far-ranging and what the eventual substitute would look like is unclear.
But whatever that substitute is, it would likely be seen by the public for the first time when introduced on the Senate floor with just one vote necessary to send the bill to the desk of Gov. Kay Ivey to be signed into law.
The bill would face one final hurdle, however. The House would have to agree to concur to the new substituted bill; if not, the bill would go to conference committee and the two chambers would have to has out yet another compromise, which would then need to go back before both chambers for approval. This could all be done on a single legislative day, a crucial element to the Legislature’s ability to pass regulation this session with only seven legislative days remaining on the calendar.
