Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard is advising Congress that state-level marijuana legalization has helped to mitigate problems related to unregulated intoxicating hemp products that non-legal states are experiencing.
At a hearing before a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee last week titled “Combatting Existing and Emerging Illicit Drug Threats,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) spoke to Bouchard about challenges he’s witnessed with the proliferation of the unregulated hemp market in Virginia.
Specifically, the congressman asked the sheriff “about the impact of unregulated, intoxicating hemp products on our kids” and whether he feels we need to “create a regulatory framework to allow lawful products to come to market.”
“I’ve been working with the [Food and Drug Administration, or FDA] on that, so I’ve got some ideas there,” Griffith said. “But I just want to know what you all have seen about these unregulated, intoxicating hemp products on our children.”
Bouchard, who has served as the county sheriff in Michigan since 1999 and is also the vice president of government affairs for the Major County Sheriffs Association, replied that “we have not seen a huge number of hemp products now since we have legalized marijuana in our state” in 2018.
However, “what we have seen is an adulteration of marijuana products, and prior to that hemp, with other kinds of synthetics and other kinds of drugs like fentanyl,” he said.
“So we’ve actually found, outside of our supply chain, if you will—the legal supply chain of marijuana our state—illegal marijuana has been tampered with and has fentanyl in it, and so we’ve seen all of these things really need a regulated, inspected process, and I would encourage that to happen, both with hemp and with marijuana.”
Read more at Marijuana Moment