Los Angeles Times: Newsom urges emergency rules to curb sale of hemp products with potent high

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

EXCERPT:

The governor introduced the proposed regulations weeks after Assembly Bill 2223, a state measure that would have instituted similar changes, died in committee.

Dr. Lynn Silver, senior advisor at the Public Health Institute, an Oakland-based independent nonprofit advocacy organization that advocated for AB 2223, said the new regulations “represent tremendous progress in protecting children and teenagers.”

“The way things are now at present, a 10-year-old can walk into a vape shop and buy intoxicating products with more THC than legal edible cannabis products,” Silver said. “These regulations will be a huge step to fix that.”

The new rules are a response “to increasing health incidents related to illegal hemp products, which state regulators have found sold across the state, especially beverages and food products. Children are particularly at risk should they consume these products,” Newsom’s statement Friday said.

In a news conference Friday morning, Newsom said he experienced “a renewed vigor” to address the issue after his preteen son told him he had older friends who were “buying some stuff they shouldn’t be” from the grocery store. When he went to see for himself, Newsom says he found intoxicating beverages sharing shelf space with LaCroix seltzer water and other non-intoxicating drinks.

“It’s a disgrace and it’s a shame and the industry bears full responsibility for not policing itself, for the proliferation of these intoxicating products that are hurting our children,” Newsom said as he stood next to a pile of colorfully packaged intoxicating hemp beverages and gummies that he said had been purchased on Thursday, adding later that “we’ve had enough. And so these emergency regulations will allow us to move forward to clamp down on that.”