Minnesota businesses can't sell raw cannabis flower until the legal market launches next year. But some places are selling it anyway and inspectors are on notice, state regulators say.
120 pounds of illegal cannabis flower was seized and destroyed at 91 retail locations, according to data from the Office of Cannabis Management as of June 14. The new agency tasked with regulatory oversight of cannabis and future businesses that will grow, manufacture and sell it, has received complaints that some stores were selling what amounted to high-potency cannabis under the label that it was hemp.
Thanks to legislation approved by Congress a few years ago, hemp became legal but only if it had no more than 0.3% THC — the psychoactive ingredient that can produce a high — on a dry weight basis. Anything more than that is considered weed, which is still a Schedule I controlled substance according to federal regulators.
"We continue to see that in shops and when we do, we embargo it or pull it from the shelves and we educate operators about the fact that cannabis sales without a license is illegal until such time as the office is issuing licenses," said Charlene Briner, the interim director of the Office of Cannabis Management, in a recent interview.
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