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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — Hemp business owners are fighting against a state agency as both sides present their arguments to a panel of Illinois lawmakers on a new set of rules for the industry.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture proposed the new rules on hemp to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules at their meeting Tuesday.
The new rules center around testing and licensing, specifically for hemp at academic institutions.
“For the universities that get this license, they wouldn’t have to comply with all the various testing requirements,” Sam McGee, a counsel for IDOA, said. “They would just have a little bit easier of a testing requirement and they could do research.”
The Department of Agriculture views the proposal as following the USDA’s rules. IDOA said Illinois and USDA both need to approve their rules.
“The department’s intent here is solely to align and implement the United States Department of Agriculture’s rules on hemp as implementing the 2018 farm bill,” David Lakeman, the IDOA division manager for cannabis and hemp, said. “It is unequivocally not the Department’s intent to take any action toward regulating the products.”
Critics said the proposed rules gives law enforcement too much power to search and arrest people with lawfully bought and transported hemp products while undermining local businesses with large fees to test their products.
“It seems to be very like they can pop in to any hemp establishment and ask to do testing at any given moment,” Norma Fuentes of the IL Hemp Business Association said. “Those things come with really stringent fees that would really harm some of these small businesses.”
Lawmakers extended the deadline for the rule change so IDOA officials can meet with people who would be affected by the rules. They will meet again next month.
Illinois lawmakers previously discussed regulating hemp and Delta-8 products with a separate law earlier this year. That bill stalled in the statehouse.