South Carolina Hemp Bill Would Sharply Restrict State’s THC-Infused Drinks And Edibles Market

“When we get to the point where we’re talking about this to circumvent legalizing marijuana, that’s a bad deal for me.”

By Shaun Chornobroff, South Carolina Daily Gazette

Teenagers in South Carolina can buy drinks infused with THC—the compound in cannabis that gets people high—at gas stations around the state due to a legal gray area that has unintentionally fostered the alcohol-alternatives in a state where marijuana remains illegal.

Bipartisan legislation in the House aims to stop that.

“The cow has left the barn on this, and we need to corral it,” GOP Rep. Chris Wooten of Lexington, the main sponsor, recently told the SC Daily Gazette.

The industry’s growth was made possible by the 2018 federal farm bill, which effectively legalized hemp and very low levels of THC extracted from it.

While it specified that delta-9 THC concentrations in hemp up to 0.3% “on a dry weight basis” were legal, neither it nor a 2019 state law that mirrored the federal language set any parameters for how much of the legal compound could be added to drinks or edibles, such as gummies, or set any age requirements for consumption.

They also didn’t at all address other THC derivatives from hemp, such as delta-8 and delta-10.

Vape shops and CBD stores selling products with those compounds have sprung up statewide since 2018—sometimes getting the attention of law enforcement but largely left alone. It was the realization that infused drinks were available at gas stations that really got legislators’ attention.

Now they’re trying to make clear what’s legal and what’s not—without unnecessarily putting people out of business.

Where to set the limit?

A House panel opened debate last week on a bill that would ban sales of a “hemp-derived consumable” to anyone under 21 years old.

That part seemed to have widespread support by legislators, makers of infused beverages, and store owners.

“That should be across the board,” Dylan Lyons, the owner of five Your CBD stores in South Carolina, said about setting a legal age.

What’s drawing the opposition, unsurprisingly, is where to set the limit for infused products.

As introduced, the bill limits the level of intoxication in consumables at 0.5 milligrams of delta-9 THC per serving, or 25 milligrams maximum of CBD in gummies, chocolates or other ingestibles.

“That would basically kill us. We’d be out of business. Our employees would be gone,” Lyons, who has three stores in the Midlands and two in the Upstate, said about the proposed milligram limits.

He and another owner of Your CBD stores touted the medicinal uses of their products. Jim Olson said he stopped needing even ibuprofen after he started using CBD.

For the state’s hemp-infused beverage industry, the half-milligram limit on delta-9 THC products is a killer, said Pierce Wylie, co-founder of Rebel Rabbit made and packaged in Greenville.

If that’s the per-can limit, customers will simply turn back to alcohol, he said.

“It would eliminate my business,” Wylie told the Gazette last week.

Rep. Seth Rose called it hypocritical to put such restrictions on alternatives to alcohol. He noted that a friend of his stopped drinking alcohol but enjoys the occasional hemp-infused drink.

His friend’s biggest side effect, said the Columbia Democrat, is that he gets tired and goes to bed.

“If you’re going to nitpick this one, then we need to have an amendment that starts nitpicking the beer, wine and liquor industry,” he said.

The infused beverage industry in South Carolina is relatively new.

Other brewers include High Rise Cannabis Dry Bar, which opened on James Island in 2023 and serves both delta-8 and delta-9 THC drinks.

In October, Columbia-based Peak Drift Brewing Co. released its own line of delta-9 seltzers.

Their drinks typically have 5 mg to 10 mg of THC per can. A 30 mg “wilder hare” version of Rebel Rabbit is slated to be discontinued this summer.

Wylie noted he already requires people to be 21 years old to buy his products. Consumers who buy them online must check a box that they’re at least 21. Similar, the websites for High Rise and Peak Drift require consumers to be 21 or older.

Drastically decreasing the dosage to less than a milligram would essentially eradicate the hemp beverage market in the state, Wylie said.

“There’d be very few products, probably less than 10 percent that would be viable with this limit,” he told the House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday.

The next day, Wooten introduced a new bill that would set the limit of hemp-derived delta-9 THC in beverages at 10 mg. He stressed the effort “is going to take a lot of work” before anything becomes law.

Another piece of the legislation would ban compounds other than delta-9.

To be legal, the THC in hemp must be “extracted or purified from an agricultural product without chemical alteration.”

The bill lists 15 chemically created THC derivatives banned outright, including delta-8 and delta-10.

They have not been approved for safe consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The federal agency has warned the public about harmful consequences.

Some argue those compounds are legal because they’re not specifically addressed in federal or state law, Todd Hughey, lab director for the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), told the House panel.

But they’re concerning “because they are psychoactive substances that need to be studied,” he said.

One Horry County lawmaker said he’s concerned that hemp-derived THC is being used as a legal substitute for marijuana, which remains illegal in South Carolina.

Over the last decade, the Legislature has repeatedly rejected legislation allowing marijuana for medicinal use, partly over concerns it would legalize the entire industry.

“When we get to the point where we’re talking about this to circumvent legalizing marijuana, that’s a bad deal for me,” said Rep. William Bailey (R-Little River).

The Legislature legalized cannabidiol, or CBD, in 2014 but only for very limited purposes.

The non-psychoactive oil extracted from hemp—a marijuana cousin—was specifically allowed for patients certified by a doctor as suffering from severe epilepsy. And proponents of hemp farming touted the plant’s usage for a variety of products, including clothing and paper.

But then the 2018 federal law overrode the state’s limits and opened up the industry.

The legal murkiness it created prompted SLED in 2021 to ask the attorney general’s office to weigh in on it. In an eight-page legal opinion, Assistant Attorney General David Jones agreed with SLED that the Hemp Farming Act legalized THC very narrowly to allow for the licensed, regulated production of industrial hemp.

“We believe…the Hemp Farming Act does not provide an exception for, and does not legalize, delta-8 THC or any other isomer of THC in itself,” Jones wrote.

But he ultimately concluded that it was up to law enforcement and the local prosecutor’s office to determine if and when someone was violating the law.

When—or whether—the Legislature will add any clarity remains to be seen.

The chairman of the House subcommittee said he expects to take testimony for several more weeks.

“Whenever you put money into your business, that becomes your baby,” said Rep. Jeff Johnson (R-Conway). “We don’t want to do something that would adversely affect that without making sure we know exactly what it is going to do.”

This story was first published by South Carolina Daily Gazette.

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