“Compromise” sometimes gets a bad rap. And history teaches us that there can be bad compromises. But as your resident glass-is-half-full contributor who has also been closely following debate over access to consumable hemp products in Alabama, I’ve been looking at some quotes about compromising and it turns out there’s some pretty good stuff from some pretty interesting folks.
Zig Ziglar, a son of Coffee County, Alabama (shoutout to my mom and her people) once warned that one should “be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.”
Mick Jagger wrote: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you’ll find you get what you need.”
And Princess Diana once said that “[t]hey say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?”
On Tuesday, the Alabama Legislature sent to Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk HB445, Alabama’s first comprehensive hemp reform bill since the emergence of hemp into the consumer marketplace following the 2018 Farm Bill. While the bill reflects a series of compromises and should be viewed as an achievement (to what degree we’ll discuss below), reaction seems to have ranged from outrage to sighing resignation to “meh.” Sounds like most compromises at my house.
What’s in the Bill?
The top line is that consumable hemp products were not banned, as many had hoped.
The bill does, however, impose substantial limitations on how and where consumable hemp products can be manufactured and sold. For example, while consumable hemp beverages may be sold at 21+ stores and certain licensed grocery stores and are limited to 10 milligrams per 12 ounce serving. Edible hemp products are also limited to 10 milligrams per single-serving doses and 4 doses per container. Of great significance to many, neither product can be sold at convenience stores (currently perhaps the largest point of sale for such products).
A licensing regime has been put in place, and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has been tasked with regulating the manufacture and sale of consumable hemp products.
Consumable hemp products will be subject to similar types of age-gating, testing, packaging, labeling, and advertising, as will medical cannabis products.
The bill will become law with the signature of the governor or by May 13 if she does not act.
What Does It Mean?
This bill is a compromise – the result of months of debate and consideration of various proposals. As with any compromise, everyone gets some of what they want but doesn’t get other things. And in a three-way contest among cannabis prohibitionists, hemp advocates, and marijuana advocates, that is exactly what happened:
- For the cannabis prohibitionist, their efforts to rid Alabama of all consumable hemp products fell short, but they can certainly take credit for dramatically limiting the types of products that can be sold, the potency of the products, and the places where the products can be sold.
- Hemp advocates took a big hit in terms of the types of products that can be sold and where they can be sold, but they also gained essential legal recognition and protection that will provide them and (perhaps more importantly) retailers and investors assurances that certain consumable hemp products are legal.
- Medical marijuana advocates – including awardees and licensees for medical cannabis licensees who have spent tens of thousands of dollars in fees to the government in the past couple of years – are disappointed that certain low-dose consumable hemp products will continue to exist and pose a competitive risk once Alabama’s medical cannabis program gets off the ground, but they also benefit by the cap on potency and the very first meaningful regulation of consumable hemp products.
Are some going to be impacted by the specifics in the bill more than others? Absolutely. Is that fair? Maybe not, but it is a reality of our political process, be that a defect or by design. If I was advising those who believed they were disproportionately harmed by the bill, I would begin working on how to mitigate against the harm using the political process and making business decisions to maximize profits until the effective date of the law while also preparing a plan for future compliance.
Conclusion
While I anticipate we will hear much about how those who voted in favor of the bill are soft on crime or how they have legalized recreational cannabis, I don’t think that’s the most precise way to look at it. While the bill does allow continued adult access to low-dose consumable hemp products in certain licensed locations, the bill also imposes substantial requirements on manufacturers and retailers, requires product testing and labeling on those products, and limits sales to locations least likely to sell to minors. While no bill is perfect, this bill goes far towards actually accomplishing the very goals almost all legislators publicly stated they wanted at the beginning of the session. To all of those who feel like more could have been accomplished, I am hopeful this bill is the first of many efforts to fine tune Alabama’s burgeoning hemp industry.
Thanks for stopping by.
