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Audio transcript (~2 min read)
This is the New Realm Compliance Brief, Volume One, Edition Sixty-Six, for Sunday, October Eighteenth.
It was a quiet weekend on the regulatory front, so today's brief runs a little shorter than usual.
Our top story. Kentucky hemp producers asked state lawmakers to cut licensing fees and restore on-premises sales of hemp beverages. At a legislative committee hearing in Frankfort, Annie Rouse, who owns the manufacturer and retailer Cannabuzz, said she pays thirteen thousand seven hundred eighty dollars a year in combined state licensing fees to make and sell hemp products, while a large distillery with equivalent operations pays about three thousand nine hundred ninety dollars. She asked lawmakers to eliminate duplicate licenses, combine the manufacturing licenses into one, and cut the hemp shipper license to one hundred dollars to match the spirits equivalent. Committee chair Representative Matthew Koch said testing and accurate beverage labeling are his priorities. These are requests, not enacted changes — any new fee schedule would come out of the session that begins in January.
In federal news, Congressman Andy Barr of Kentucky detailed his proposed hemp framework. He said it would set a twenty-one and over age limit, require third-party testing and manufacturing standards, cap THC potency per serving, restrict packaging that appeals to children, and create dual taxes based on retail price and beverage potency. The bill has not advanced, and some observers expect hemp language to ride on the next budget bill, because the current funding measure expires December eleventh — the same day the federal THC limits take effect.
Around the states. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced that medical cannabis dispensaries are now open in all eleven of the state's licensing regions, with twenty-six stores and more than twenty-eight thousand approved patients. House Majority Whip Jason Nemes asked the attorney general to ensure state agencies do not cooperate with the governor's expansion of qualifying conditions, which he called unlawful. And in South Dakota, medical marijuana operators and the legislature's oversight committee clashed over the committee's choice of hearing speakers.
On the radar: the DEA's reply in the marijuana rescheduling case is due Wednesday, October twenty-first. Massachusetts votes on Question Eight on November third. And the federal hemp THC limits arrive in two steps, November twelfth and December eleventh.
Full details and source links are in today's email. This update is for general information only — it is not legal advice.