by Brianna Cook
Thu, May 9th 2024 at 6:10 PM
Updated Fri, May 10th 2024 at 8:05 AM
MACON, Ga. (WGXA) -- The Georgia Department of Agriculture will now oversee regulating hemp products.
Senate Bill 494 requires packaging, labeling, and marketing requirements to help protect children from misleading advertisements.
Matthew Agvent with the Georgia Department of Agriculture says in the past there was not much regulation for what was sold at a hemp or CBD store.
"It was really kind of like the Wild West so what SB 494 does is it just puts some guard rails in place to ensure that consumers know what exactly they are buying", said Agvent.
Testing of products for accurate ingredients is now also required.
"Every one of the products we tested the label was not accurate to what was actually in the product and every product we tested also had illegal levels of delta-9 thc...In some cases, we're talking hundreds of times what the legal limit is", said Agvent.
The bill also restricts anyone younger than 21 years old from purchasing hemp-related products.
Joe Salome co-owner of the Georgia Hemp Company is in full support of the bill. He says for years there was uncertainty around the hemp business but this law helps to soothe their worries.
"Every January we didn't know what was going to happen at the capitol whether our whole industry would be wiped out or certain aspects of it would be, but this year the governor signed a bill that put some parameters around us", said Salome.
He says the playing field is now even with this law.
"We are competing with both the black market and the medical cannabis market. What this actually does is that it helps us compete directly with the medical cannabis market. Right now not only are our products more potent but we have more offerings than them", said Salome.
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