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In 2022, then-House Speaker Clay Schexnayder authored legislation that allows people to get high by buying hemp products at gas stations and smoke shops.
Last week, a hemp dispensary and a hemp distributor hired him as a lobbyist, according to state records.
Schexnayder is being paid $18,000 this year to lobby the executive branch of state government and local governments for Cypress Hemp and for RMH Distro, according Blake Bilger, a co-founder of Cypress Hemp.
State Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, who opposed the 2022 hemp bill while serving in the House, said the former speaker’s new gig doesn’t surprise him and other critics.
“I suspect he’s cashing in for passing the bill a couple of years ago and getting them into business,” Seabaugh said. “He’s very clearly been working with them for years with a motivation that made a lot of us suspect that he had a financial interest in it somehow.”
Schexnayder said he has never had a financial interest the hemp industry and isn’t cashing in now.
“I don’t think you hire somebody who doesn’t know anything about the industry,” Schexnayder said. “You hire someone who knows what you’re talking about.”
While he can lobby the executive branch and state government, Schexnayder, a Republican who represented Gonzales, must wait two years before he can lobby the Legislature after term limits ended his legislative career in early 2024.
Thanks to his legislation, “adult-use” consumable products made from hemp have become a flourishing industry just recently. Companies can sell products containing up to 8 mg of THC per serving, 3 mg above the quantity that makes infrequent users feel high, according to the cannabis education site Leafly.
No one has done more to help the industry in recent years than Schexnayder.
In 2019, he sponsored a law that allowed the sale of industrial hemp-derived products that contain CBD, which does not make people high. In 2020 and 2021, his bills expanded the reach of hemp products in Louisiana.
In 2022, Schexnayder sponsored legislation that appeared to legalize THC in hemp, the psychoactive chemical that gets people high. Lawmakers gave their thumbs up only after he assured the state-regulated marijuana industry privately and legislators publicly that it wouldn’t lead to the sale of mind-altering substances.
The Legislature approved the bill, but it turns out that it takes only a couple of THC gummies to get someone high.
There are now 1,503 retail outfits throughout Louisiana that sell the adult-use consumable products made from hemp, according to the state office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.
In 2023, Schexnayder sought to modestly restrict the industry but stopped trying to advance his bill after facing skepticism from his colleagues. The move ended up serving the hemp industry because it remained untouched.
Cypress, which has hired Schexnayder, sells THC Shroom Gummies and THC Sleep Gummies, among other items, according to its website.
Bilger said Schexnayder has never had a financial interest in his company.
“We hired Clay as a temporary consultant to help understand dynamics and thought processes of our prohibitionist opposition that he also fought against to help enable Louisianians access to hemp,” Bilger said in an email.
RMH Distro, which bills itself as “the leader in CBD and hemp distribution,” is owned by Rashad Mazen Hamideh, who online records show lives in Alexandria. Attempts to reach him Tuesday were not successful.
Legal hemp is imperiled now by Senate Bill 237 by Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport. His legislation aims to “completely eliminate” Louisiana’s consumable hemp industry, seeking to outlaw beverages and snacks that contain any quantities of THC. The Senate approved Pressly’s bill on Monday. It requires House passage as well to become law.
But the House on Tuesday night rejected an effort to ban hemp that can get people high. Instead, House members approved House Bill 952 to tighten regulations on the industry.
Note: The story has been updated to report that Schexnayder is being $18,000 for his work.
Staff reporters Sam Karlin and James Finn contributed to this article.
“}]] In 2022, then-House Speaker Clay Schexnayder authored legislation that allows people to get high by buying hemp products at gas stations and smoke shops. Read More