KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — After safety concerns, hemp store owners say they're waiting for more rules and regulations about what hemp products they can sell.
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp containing less than 0.3% of Delta-9 THC. This makes it legal for businesses to sell products with hemp-derived cannabinoids—like Delta-8 and THCA—as long as they meet the legal limit for Delta-9.
Critics, including Tennessee Attorney General Johnathan Skremmetti, have questioned the safety of these legal intoxicants.
Hemp store owners, like Andy Chesney who owns Hemp House, say they've been waiting for new rules, which were expected to be released on July 1.
"I think it'll be hard to say which way things are going to go," Chesney said. "I think that it is going to limit the amount of illicit hemp products or even dangerous ones."
Chesney said he's pulled some items off shelves and started planning for these new rules.
Those suggested regulations included child-proof packaging, a serving size limit of 25mg and a QR code on packaging notifying consumers of the exact chemical components, like percentages of THC and CBD.
Chesney says the 25mg per serving limit could be tricky for stores to navigate, or it could eliminate some of the products off his shelves. He says it would most affect products like vape cartridges and smokable hemp flower.
"If you have a [vape] cartridge that has, you know, 800 milligrams in it, what constitutes one serving?" Chesney said, "I think it would have to be identified on the packaging in order for it to remain a legal product. Just from an operations standpoint, it's up to the individual business owners to, you know, figure out their own compliance."
Before these rules were released, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture asked people for public comments.
"There were over 6,000 comments that were submitted," Chesney said. "The majority of them were, 'Please, don't change this law.' And so the Department of Agriculture was required to review and respond to each of those comments, and so that's why this rulemaking process has been pushed back so far."
The one thing businesses like the Hemp House say they know for sure is the window to obtain a hemp license is now open. Previously, businesses that sold hemp products like Delta-8 and Delta-9 only needed proper retail and business licenses, Chesney said.