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It’s a trend that has been growing for months now and if you’ve driven around the Black Hills you’ve likely seen signs advertising “legal weed” or CBD with psychoactive qualities. That trend may be coming to an end soon with the Senate Health and Human Services Committee passing House Bill 1125 this Wednesday, a bill that would make the sale of chemically altered hemp products illegal.
House Bill 1125 was introduced at the end of January addressing psychoactive variants of CBD. Since then, the bill has been amended three times. The amendments widen the scope of products impacted to any altered hemp that is not a topical treatment.
During the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 21, one of the bill’s sponsors took to the floor to defend the bill.
“They’ve become very prevalent known by different names even, come in colored fancy packaging, are sold at gas stations, shops, and marketed statewide. These products are a serious health threat,” said State Senator Brent Hoffman.
Another bill sponsor Representative Brian Mulder from Minnehaha County, brought experts to testify on the safety of the products citing deaths related to delta 8, 9, and 10 THC.
This contradicts what a business owner says. He claims when the products are adequately tested, they are safer than regular THC.
“Every person that’s producing a CBD product, has to have that product tested by a DEA-registered lab. So right here I have bins that all contain COAs a customer can come in and I can show them that, A., this product is indeed a hemp product, but along with those labs comes all the heavy metals that aren’t in it, everything else, it shows you that this product is clean and it’s produced by responsible players in the market,” said Caleb Rose the co-owner of Black Hills CBD.
Rose believes this legislation will open the door to more CBD restrictions in the future. He emphasized this change only impacts businesses, not consumers.
“All of these products that they’re worried about protecting us from will still be available online, but the shops will still be made criminals, consumers will still be able to get them because they’re still legal at a federal level, but brick and mortars will be punished for even carrying them,” said Rose.
HB 1125 now moves to the State Senate floor to be voted on.
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