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State of Louisiana advances bill to ban THC drinks
Louisiana has advanced a bill to reduce the legal level of THC in consumable products from 0.3% to 0%, which will wipe out the sale of THC seltzers.
The Louisiana House Administration of Criminal Justice has advanced a bill that effectively bans consumable THC products in the state, including THC seltzers and gummies.
The bill lowers the current 0.3% THC level allowed in consumable products to zero, which could make THC drinks illegal.
It is coming up for debate and vote in the full House of Representatives soon. If it passes the House, and gets signed by the governor, it will then become law.
Speaking to Louisiana publication The Gambit, Joe Gerrity, CEO of THC seltzer-producer Crescent Canna, hit back at the ruling.
“Consumers have the right to choose what they consume,” Gerrity said. “Your job is not to kill an industry, but to further grow and regulate and ensure the safety of those products.”
He claimed that banning consumable THC products would cause the loss of “hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, close hundreds of small businesses and cripple the desire of entrepreneurs like myself to continue starting businesses in this state”.
According to Jacob Landry, CEO of Urban South Brewery in New Orleans, its THC-infused seltzers have been selling well.
“Our customers are school teachers, they’re grandmothers, they’re people who want to stop consuming alcohol,” he said. “They want something else to relax at the end of a hard day teaching kids, they want something that will allow them to get off their sleeping medication, something that is more natural.”
On its website, Urban South Brewery states that if you drink one can of its Driftee THC seltzers you will feel “calm and content”. If you have two cans, you will find yourself in a “bubbly and blissful” state, while three cans will leave you “on Cloud 9!”.
THC Vs CBD seltzers: what’s the difference?
While both CBD and THC are compounds found in the cannabis plant, CBD is is not psychoactive, whereas THC is the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.
In layman’s terms, a consumer will not get the ‘high’ normally associated with marijuana from drinking a CBD product, although there have been questions about the safe legal limit of the CBD dosage, with the UK government reducing it recently to
At present in the US, products with less than 0.3% THC are legal on the federal level, but are illegal under some state laws including, now potentially Louisiana, should it pass into law.
“Minnesota and Connecticut allow our products to be sold in liquor stores and restaurants where consumers are deciding whether to drink booze or not,” Jake Bullock, CEO of THC-seltzer producer Cann, told db in an exclusive interview.
“The second challenge is educating consumers on how many they can have and what they should expect to feel. Folks are still nervous about THC and want to be in control. Microdosed products allow drinkers to feel mild effects.”
According to Bullock, “there is a growing body of research demonstrating how THC is less impairing than alcohol, especially in microdoses of under 5mg THC.”
He added that historically, the US federal government “only funded science research on the harms of THC and would forbid any studies on the benefits of THC, so we do not have a robust research base to demonstrate the positive wellness effects that millions experience anecdotally in their lives.”