Rhode Island Bills To Restrict Hemp THC Drinks Ignore Science And Current Regulations (Op-Ed)
From toxifillers.com with love
“Products that meet intoxicating thresholds should be sold in dispensaries, and products that do not should be available through licensed CBD consumable retailers.”
By Mike Simpson, Lovewell Farms via Rhode Island Current
As co-founder of Rhode Island’s only U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic hemp farm, and the largest outdoor cannabis farm in the state, I’ve spent the last eight years helping build the hemp industry from the ground up.
At Lovewell Farms, we’ve operated under one of the strictest regulatory frameworks in the country, subject to licensing, batch testing, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) limits, secure packaging requirements and product traceability. Yet two recently proposed bills, H6056 and H6270, would cut licensed hemp farms like ours out of the very market we helped establish.
These bills, introduced by Democratic Reps. Jacquelyn Baginski of Cranston and Scott Slater of Providence, aim to regulate the sale of hemp-derived beverages containing delta-9 THC, the compound most commonly associated with cannabis intoxication.
Slater’s bill would specifically eliminate the sale of such beverages and drink mix powders in Rhode Island, unless these products are specifically included in the state’s cannabis laws. The bills misrepresent both the science behind these products and the legal infrastructure already in place.
During a recent House hearing, Rep. Baginski stated, “I was surprised to learn that hemp-based THC products are also available in the marketplace and largely sold unregulated…at any establishment with a retail sales permit. That could be a convenience store, a hair salon, a gas station, anywhere.”
Respectfully, this is inaccurate. In Rhode Island, consumable hemp products must be produced by licensed handlers and tested by certified labs. They are subject to strict limits on THC content, comprehensive labeling standards, and age restrictions. If some products are being sold outside these rules, that’s a failure of enforcement, not evidence of an unregulated system.
Rep. Slater’s testimony in support of his bill, which would effectively ban all hemp-derived THC beverages unless sold through a dispensary, also included misleading claims. He asserted that “the hemp-derived THC products are now being sold outside the regulated cannabis system with minimal oversight, including limited testing, weak labeling, no seed-to-sale tracking as well as avoidance of cannabis taxes.”
This characterization erases the work of licensed hemp producers who follow every requirement the state imposes, many of whom, like us, already distribute specific products through dispensaries and operate with full compliance under existing cannabis laws.
Slater went on to say that allowing hemp beverages undermines Rhode Island’s cannabis cultivators, whom he described as his constituents. “I really find it unfair that as soon as this market has started that we’re trying to undermine them…and allowing folks that found kind of a loophole with this synthetically altered hemp in drinks…without going through the same framework that everyone else has.”
But our farm has always followed the framework. There is no loophole for us, just increasing restrictions on products we’ve made legally, safely and transparently for years.
Both bills ignore a crucial scientific fact: Not all hemp products are intoxicating.
Our full-spectrum gummies and vape cartridges, for example, often contain a CBD-to-THC ratio of 25:1 or higher. Peer-reviewed research shows that products with a 15:1 ratio or greater are effectively non-intoxicating, as the CBD counteracts the effects of THC. These products are designed for stress, sleep and inflammation support, not intoxication. Lumping them together with high-potency THC beverages from out of state is scientifically inaccurate and economically harmful.
What’s also troubling is that these bills would hand control of hemp beverage sales to either liquor stores or cannabis dispensaries, while excluding the very farms that have driven the state’s hemp market since 2018.
Rep. Baginski says she wants to “create a new safe marketplace for hemp THC beverages,” but the safest and most transparent path is the one we already have: Products that meet intoxicating thresholds should be sold in dispensaries, and products that do not should be available through licensed CBD consumable retailers. That distinction already exists under current state law.
Rhode Island can and should regulate cannabinoids based on potency, ratios and public health risk. But it must do so with accuracy and fairness. Hemp farmers have invested many years and many dollars into building compliant, small-scale businesses rooted in sustainable agriculture and community health. We are not the problem, we are part of the solution.
My hope is that lawmakers will revisit these proposals and work with, not around, the people who have spent years getting it right. Hemp regulation should be based on science and equity, not stigma or disinformation.
Mike Simpson is the co-founder of Lovewell Farms, Rhode Island’s only U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic hemp farm. He is also a historian, educator and longtime advocate for policy reform. He was previously deputy director for Regulate Rhode Island and an initiative coordinator for Marijuana Policy Project in Maine. He now lives in Providence and farms in the village of Hope Valley in Hopkinton.
This story was first published by Rhode Island Current.
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