Zombie legislation fails. Indiana lawmakers kill bill banning hemp-derived cannabinoids, leaving market regulation unresolved.
A bill that banning hemp-derived intoxicating cannabinoids died early last week when it failed to get a second reading in the House. But the zombie legislation briefly rose from the dead last Thursday as sponsors attempted to get a conference committee to include it, only to be killed once and for all in that committee.
The measure, Senate Bill 250 from Sen. Aaron Freeman (R-Indianapolis) would have aligned the state with the looming federal ban by defining hemp as cannabis containing less than 0.3 percent total THC—not just delta-9 THC—and by setting a cap of 0.4 milligrams per container on THC products. Laboratory-made cannabinoids would also be banned. The bill also created a regulatory regime for low-THC farm-grown hemp products and imposed a long-sought age requirement for the purchase of hemp products.
Hoosier lawmakers have repeatedly tried to regulate psychoactive cannabinoids derived from hemp, such as delta-8 THC, THCA, and others, but have failed amid a divide between the House and Senate on how restrictive or expansive the approach should be. Freeman's prohibitionist bill now joins those previous failed efforts.
Freeman accused his fellow lawmakers of ending the session "having done nothing" on hemp cannabinoids and leaving the state out of line with the looming federal changes.
"Currently, right, marijuana is illegal, (but) tell that to however many states it’s legalized in. Don’t tell that to California; they don’t care," Freeman said. "So they’re saying we’re not following federal law. Now, I think that is a really dangerous precedent … And by the way, Indiana is going to be in that category come November, which is all all shades of scary to me."
Although the bill failed during the regular session, as lawmakers from all four caucuses met Thursday, there was an effort to gut another bill and insert the SB 250 language into it. But it did not appear in the conference committee report released Friday afternoon.
Industry representatives previously testified customers would not want THC products that don’t produce a high. The legislation wouldn’t have affected CBD, which is not intoxicating.
The SB 250 language had been "added in" to the report, said Rep. Elizabeth Rowray (R-Yorktown), but "subsequently taken back out."