News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
New rules announced by the State Department of Agriculture could have a severe impact on Tennessee’s hemp industry.
Greenhaus Cannabis Co. Owner Jessica Mogensen said the new rules will greatly restrict the amount of Delta-9 THC a product can contain after being heated up. Mogensen said this change would make the vast majority of products these stores sell illegal.
“As the federal law stands right now, I can legally ship to Tennessee,” Mogensen said. “And so can a million other websites. It’s not like Tennessee is just going to shut this down. My customer base could move to any other website and get it shipped to them and Tennessee is missing out on millions of dollars of tax revenue.”
The rules are currently set to go into effect on December 26. Crossville Vapor Owner Stephen Crabtree said jobs will be lost as Tennessee is one of the largest consumers of hemp products in the nation. Crabtree said the biggest issue with the change is that consumers will turn to the black market to get these products.
“The black market today is not what it was ten, twenty, thirty years ago,” Crabtree said. “Now everything has the possibility to either be intentionally contaminated with fentanyl or most likely unintentionally contaminated.”
Crabtree said there have not been any official discussions from the state explaining why the changes are coming now.
“It’s been more rumors than anything,” Crabtree said. “To me personally on my level, it doesn’t make sense why we would lay the groundwork for the tax and start building infrastructure for that just to then take away the majority of the industry that is giving you that tax.”
Crabtree said many stores will not be able to survive without the help of a larger organization like the Tennessee Healthy Alternatives Association to assist them.
“The more people that you have that are advocating and informing the customer base, that are communicating with your representatives, that are able to help fund raise a fight to push back against this, I mean it definitely goes against what the law says, the rules do, so you have to have money, of course, to fight the legal battle and that’s where we’re at right now,” Crabtree said.
Mogensen said she just opened another hemp shop in Florida as a backup plan to continue her business despite the hurdles in Tennessee. Mogensen said they are board members of the Tennessee Growers Coalition and also have plans to combat the regulations in court.
“We are working with Nashville hemp lawyers and they do plan to challenge these as well,” Mogensen said. “Most of my customer base is forty plus. A lot of them are like sixty plus. A lot of them have cancer and they’re going to be criminals overnight.”
