Federal Court Upholds Intoxicating Hemp Ban in Vir
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has validated the strict rules imposed on intoxicating hemp products in the state of Virginia. The court ruled that the regulations weren’t in conflict with the Dormant Commerce Clause as it treated all out-of-state and in-state parties equally and didn’t favor local businesses or burden interstate commerce.
The clause is a principle of law that bars states from enacting regulations which interfere with interstate commerce.
The ruling added that the regulations weren’t in conflict with federal law either, explaining that the state had a bigger responsibility to care for the safety and health of the public and could regulate these intoxicating products even more strictly than federal law. Under federal law, states are allowed to implement stricter regulations for hemp production.
In addition to this, the courts recognized that the regulation could have economic consequences for businesses but had no reason to prevent its enaction.
This ruling is a huge setback to the hemp industry’s legal challenge against these regulations, as it upholds that state regulations aren’t in conflict with the Constitution or federal regulations. It comes after Northern Virginia Hemp and Agriculture as well as other plaintiffs filed an appeal challenging SB 903. The primary objective of this measure was to protect consumers from exposure to these products.
It focused on controlling the proliferation of intoxicating hemp products in the market, ranging from beverages to gummies that were being sold as alternatives to marijuana. Most of these products are produced synthetically from CBD derived from hemp and include different compounds like HHC, Delta-10 THC, delta-8 THC, and THC-O, which allowed the market to grow rapidly.
In their case, the plaintiffs argued that state regulations conflicted with the law as stipulated under the 2018 Farm Bill, as it restricted the total THC amounts in hemp products to 0.3%. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the cultivation and production of hemp, limiting THC levels of the crop to no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC. The legislation didn’t restrict other THC forms, including delta-8.
In other news, the future of hemp is being reviewed in the upcoming farm bill. Various legislators have already proposed amendments that’d redefine the crop to exclude any intoxicating substance completely. If these amendments are included in the final bill, it could offer a more consistent federal standard and eliminate regulatory battles at the state level. However, it would also deal a devastating blow to the hemp industry.
This clarity at the federal level is what hemp industry firms like Software Effective Solutions Corp. (d/b/a MedCana) (OTC: SFWJ) have been calling for so that the patchwork of rules at state level gets some measure of uniformity.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Software Effective Solutions Corp. (d/b/a MedCana) (OTC: SFWJ) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://cnw.fm/SFWJ
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