Hemp advocates and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office are due in court Friday for an hourslong hearing on whether a crackdown on unlicensed sellers of hemp products should be halted.
The Arizona Attorney General opined in March that it’s illegal to sell intoxicating hemp products without a state dispensary license. Then the Hemp Industry Trade Association sued, hoping to block a police crackdown.
Jason Horn owns a Tempe smoke shop that had to pull hemp products from shelves. Horn is not a member of the hemp trade group, but he supports their case.
“They’re gonna have structure. They want to have testing. They want to have proper labeling. They want to support small business in Arizona,” Horn said.
A lawyer for the hemp trade group says their case hinges on what federal law allows. And the 2018 farm bill legalized all hemp-derived cannabinoids.
Testimony saying that thousands of retail jobs have been impacted and hundreds of millions in wages lost due to a state crackdown on hemp products is planned for the hearing.
Horn supports an open market.
“If you think about smoke shops, we’re the ones who catered to cannabis consumers out here for decades,” Horn said.
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