This week, the Tennessee general assembly officially passed a bill, creating massive changes including pushing regulatory authority of the industry from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to the Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
But, the biggest change, banning the sale of products with a total THC content of more than .3%, which includes THCA, the hemp industry’s top-selling product.
Connor Murray, the marketing manager for Gold Spectrum, one of the state’s largest hemp retailers, says this bill will prevent them from selling about 90% of their products and they aren’t alone.
“It decimates our industry,” Murray said.
Murray says, it could force their business to move states, potentially impacting their employees.
“All almost 300 employees that we have, for the most part, a majority of those would have to be let go if we were to move our operations elsewhere, which nothing is off the table,” he said.
The bill, if signed by Gov. Lee would go into effect on Jan 1.
According to Kelley Hess, the CEO of the Tennessee Growers Coalition, one of the state’s leading advocates for hemp retailers, those within the industry had been working with lawmakers to create portions of this bill, that was until last week.
When the bill made it to the house floor and house speaker William Lamberth added a surprise amendment which effectively banned the sale of THCA – which he spoke about on the house floor.
“The way it’s going, if we don’t regulate it, it’s getting completely out of hand,” he said.
For those in the industry, that move, sent shockwaves.
“Really a total backstab to the whole entire industry because we had been working in good faith,” Hess said. “The small businesses lose, the communities lose, its thousands of employees and the state loses out on tax revenue and regulated product.”
Now, hemp businesses like Gold Spectrum are left to navigate these changes while encouraging officials to do more research.
“People just don’t know about this industry,” Murray said. “We invite senators, representatives any local officials, sheriffs, TBI anyone like that, please reach out. We’d love to give you a tour, we’d love to sit down with you and explain to you who we are and what we do.”
News 5 has heard from hemp industry leaders that a legal battle to get this potential new law reversed could be in the cards.
Before this bill was passed, industry legal counsel was preparing for a court date with the Department of Agriculture to fight off rule changes that would have also prevented the sale of THCA.
