"This Is Not Going Away."
Southwest Harbor Starts to Consider Moratorium on Unregulated Intoxicating Hemp Products.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR—It’s not often that town officials sit behind a table that has a vape pen and intoxicating-hemp derived drinks and bars on it, but that’s exactly what happened at two different meetings, Tuesday, June 24.
“I just really wanted to bring it to your attention,” Town Manager Karen Reddersen said to her select board as she placed product after product on the tables in front of them.
The ‘it’ she was talking about was the accessibility of intoxicating hemp-derived drinks and gummies and other products.
The hemp-derived products can potentially intoxicate and some could cause hallucinations. They are being sold in Mount Desert Island region towns.
“These are not regulated,” Reddersen said.
Both the League of Towns and the Southwest Harbor Select Board heard about the worries of intoxicating-hemp-derived products, Tuesday. Both those presentations involved the owners of Meristem, Hancock County’s only recreational-use retail marijuana store.
While Meristem’s products and store is regulated by the state of Maine, the products worrying its owners and general manager are not and those products can now often be found in restaurants, bars, and convenience stores.
According to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, “Hemp and marijuana are both forms of the cannabis plant. The cannabis plant contains more than 100 compounds (or cannabinoids). These compounds include tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is impairing or mind-altering, as well as other active compounds, such as cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is not impairing, meaning it does not cause a ‘high.’”
Hemp is any part of that cannabis plant where there is less than 0.3% delta-9 THC in dry weight.
Marijuana has more than 0.3%. It is regulated.
In 2018, the federal government made hemp-derived Delta-8, -9 and -10 consumable products legal. The 2018 Farm Bill classified cannabis and hemp differently. When that happened, hemp was no longer listed as a federally controlled substance.
Hemp is used for rope. It’s used for fabric. It can be used as an alternative to plastic.
But, CBD can be taken from hemp through an extraction process.
In Maine, if THC is less than a certain percentage, it’s regulated by the state agricultural department. An emergency bipartisan bill (LD 1920) was passed to be enacted, June 11, by the state legislature. It would not allow the products’ sale to people 21 and under.
But overall, for people over 21, right now? These products aren’t regulated and that worries the owners of Meristem, one of who is on the Southwest Harbor Select Board, and it worries the select board itself. On Tuesday, the board directed Reddersen to work with the town attorney to explore options for placement of a potential moratorium for intoxicating hemp-derived products or chemically derived THC products. Any moratorium would have to go before residents for a vote.
Board members worried that they couldn’t outright ban the products if they were already being sold in town. However, one man asked why not, since Bar Harbor banned the sale of flavored tobacco products in 2023.
Southwest Harbor Town Clerk Jennifer LaHaye said the town has received multiple calls about ordinances related to vaping and about potentially having a business in town that solely sells vaping products.
Tyler Johnson, co-owner of Meristem and the Liquor Locker Store, said, “It’s a difficult topic for somebody who has gone through a lot of hoops to provide a legal adult-use.”
That sentiment was echoed by his wife at the League of Towns meeting earlier in the day. She explained to League of Town members (mostly administrators from MDI region towns) that their store must follow strict regulations. The state tracks all products. The products also have to be tested by the state for quality.
The hemp-derived products do not have those regulations and aren’t covered by the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy.
“You’re seeing drinks. You’re seeing gummies. You’re seeing traditional vaporizer pens….” Tyler Johnson told Southwest Harbor officials.
Those products mimic those sold by Meristem and other licensed stores. They are often branded for younger consumers.
He said, “There are several unsavory processes to create this stuff.”
They take a CBD base, chemically alter it with industrial acids and turn it into a. psychoactive substance, Meristem representatives told Southwest Harbor select board members. The labelling is also a problem. Terms can be ambiguous and misleading on labels. And the products can be sold in a restaurant right beside beer or shots. They called it a triple threat.
“We’re seeing things such as video games, little handheld video games that are also simultaneously vaporizers,” one representative said. Their goal is to mitigate the risk.
“Products are already being sold within the town limits,” Reddersen said. “This is not going to go away.”
There is legal uncertainty across the country about intoxicating hemp-derived products. Cannabis laws in some states have been changed to restrict sales of products with just delta-8 THC, some for any intoxicating hemp-derived products.
“Hemp products with various forms of THC can cause impairing and psychotropic effects,” the National Council of Mental Well-Being writes. “THC use can have harmful effects on the developing brains of children and youth. Intoxicating hemp-derived products can slow reaction time, impair the ability to make decisions, cause dizziness and disorientation and impair motor coordination. All side effects can increase the risk of injury—particularly while driving or operating heavy machinery. Research is still underway to understand the effects of intoxicating hemp-derived products on the brain.”
LD1920
LD1920 an act prohibiting the sales of potentially intoxicating hemp products’ summary states, “This bill prohibits the sale of potentially intoxicating hemp products to a person who has not attained 21 years of age. The bill also establishes requirements for the packaging of hemp products, including the requirement that all potentially intoxicating hemp products that are not salves or topical products be packaged in child-resistant and tamper-evident packaging. The bill also provides that all hemp products are subject to the requirement that the product not be labeled or packaged in a manner that violates federal trademark law and not be designed in such a way that would cause a person to confuse the product with a different trademarked product.”
Natasha Johnson told the League of Towns members, Tuesday morning, “It was emergency legislation that was passed on June 11.”
Before that, anyone, regardless of age, could purchase any item that has intoxicating substances in it in Maine.
The legislation says that you can’t purchase those products if you are under 21. However, it doesn’t put into effect regulations or enforcement of sales.
The products she brought to the meeting came from the administrators’ towns. At least one product came from a mixed single case that also included beer and soda.
She told the administrators, “I am very concerned.”
She’s worried that the products might end up in the hands of people it shouldn’t be in the hands of.
No changes are set yet in Southwest Harbor and the issues have not come before other town councils or select boards in the region.
Johnson said that she wants to be sure that the substances are regulated in a way that’s as safe as possible.
“I find it very concerning that we do have intoxicating substances like these and they are creating more by just changing that double bond,” she said of the chemistry behind the products and the 2018 Farm Bill loophole.
Some of the products, she stressed, can cause almost a psychedelic effect.
Trenton Select Board Chair Fred Ehrlenbach said while lifting one product and reading a label, “This one says consult a doctor before using.”
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