(Radio Iowa) – A bill to set new state limits on the sale of hemp-infused pills, food and beverages is eligible for consideration in a House committee. The 2018 Farm Bill made it legal to grow hemp and a state law passed a year later allows the sale of non-intoxicating hemp products. The bill sets a significant penalty for selling hemp-infused products with high levels of T-H-C, the substance in marijuana that creates that high. Josie Wagler is legislative liaison for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, which proposed the bill.

“We’ve seen an emergence of high potency, high THC products hit the market,” Wagler says, “and, coupled with that, there are no age restrictions for purchasing these products.” The bill would make it illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to buy consumable hemp products in Iowa. Leslie Carpenter of Iowa Mental Health Advocates says research shows a higher incidence of psychotic disorders among teens who’ve consumed products with high levels of T-H-C.

“I fully support medical marijuana,” Carpenter says. “It’s the high potency THC products and that currently a child can walk into a store and purchase them that makes me very concerned.” Scott Booher, who operates Four Winds Farm and Apothecary in the Amana Colonies, says he makes non-psychoactive products and the bill lumps him in with bad actors.

“Some of these people who are creating high THC products need to be held accountable in a different way,” Booher said, “maybe not with people who have low THC products.” Rachel Gulick owns House of Glass in Des Moines which sells consumable hemp products. She says the bill is designed to favor the state-licensed businesses allowed to grow, manufacture and sell medical marijuana in Iowa.

“It seems to me that we are trying to monopolize the industry for a very specific, private interest,” she said. A hemp grower told legislators got state permission to produce hemp as a food ingredient on January 31st — and this bill attempts to ban it.

The Republican lawmakers who advanced the bill say intoxicating hemp products are being sold and served in Iowa and it’s time for legislators to act.