INDIANAPOLIS — Matt Wall estimates that he’s got a month left in business.
He owns Wall’s Organics, a retailer of delta-8 and other hemp-derived products that, until this year, had encountered “no problems” legally. That was until August 4, when Evansville Police Officer Nathan Hassler entered one of Wall’s four stores and told him to get such products off his shelves in 10 days — or face arrest on charges of selling marijuana. Hassler also handed him a document: an advisory opinion from the state’s chief legal officer.
When Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita issued the opinion in January this year declaring that the products are illegal, law enforcement around the state took note — and some members of the industry promptly filed suit. Wall is among them. “It’s killing our business,” he told the Capital Chronicle.
Delta-8 and the other products accounted for 90% of sales, and since mid-August, he’s dropped from $2,000 days to $300 days. Now, he’s facing staff layoffs, store closures, and angry customers — some of whom, he said, are returning to more dangerous substances.
Manufacturer and distributor 3Chi and the Midwest Hemp Council originally filed suit on June 26 against Rokita’s Office and the State of Indiana, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Wall joined in an amended complaint filed on August 16, which also added several local law enforcement defendants.
Hemp-derived products have for years occupied a legal gray area, the 14-page stack of paper Hassler brought to Wall’s store reads. And it offers a definitive interpretation.
Rokita opined that Indiana law designates all natural and synthetic forms of tetrahydrocannabinol — the major psychoactive component in the cannabis plant — as Schedule I controlled substances. That designation means a substance has no accepted medical use but does have a high potential for abuse.
That’s although, on the federal level, such hemp-derived substances are generally considered legal and unregulated — as long as they are below 0.3% delta-9 THC. Above that, hemp or hemp products are considered banned marijuana.
Following 2018’s federal Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the definition of marijuana, Indiana legalized the industrial hemp industry. The state used the same 0.3% delta-9 THC cutoff in legalizing “low THC hemp extract” products.
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