hemp<\/a>\u00a0or CBD that has THC content greater than 0.4 milligrams, either personally or as a store owner. That’s because tucked into the new law to end the federal government shutdown was a ban on some hemp products.<\/p>\n“I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay open,” Utz said.<\/p>\n
It closes a loophole from the Farm Bill of 2018, which allowed products that could be more potent than marijuana to hit the marketplace and attract children with bright-colored packaging.<\/p>\n
Patrick Nightingale is a criminal defense attorney in the Pittsburgh area and the president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.<\/p>\n
“That has created a wide unregulated marketplace where unregulated and untested products are working their way onto retail shelves and being made available to the public,” Nightingale said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the new law basically eliminates nearly all products derived from hemp from being sold at convenience stores, gas stations and online.<\/p>\n
“Any intoxicating hemp products that are produced are now subject to state regulation,” Nightingale said.<\/p>\n
This means the only way to get these products in Pennsylvania would be if state lawmakers pass a bill regulating them for adult use, allowing businesses to get a license similar to that for medical marijuana.<\/p>\n
However, in the interim, Utz worries for herself and the thousands of others whose lives she said will be turned upside down if something doesn’t change.<\/p>\n
“This is my livelihood that they’re playing with,” Utz said.<\/p>\n
According to a 2023 report from Whitney Economics, a cannabis and hemp research consulting firm, this legislation will destroy 95 percent of businesses and cost $1.5 billion in lost tax revenue.<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Congress voted to end the government shutdown on Wednesday, there was a ban on intoxicating hemp products…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,20994,8629,3,3234,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-290500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-harrisburg","10":"tag-josh-shapiro","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}