Cannabidiol products are coming back to Kansas after lawmakers approved to bring back the marijuana extract often used as alternative medicine.
Lawmakers voted in April to exclude cannabidiol, or CBD, from the state’s definition of marijuana as long as the oil contains no THC, the ingredient in marijuana that gets people high. The vote effectively makes CBD an unrestricted substance, the Kansas City Star reported .
The state’s decision came after Attorney General Derek Schmidt issued a January opinion saying any form of marijuana is against the law in Kansas.
“Ultimately it gained wide support in the House because of the attention that had been given to CBD oil for several years,” said Rep. Dan Hawkins. “It wasn’t new to the House.”
The opinion was in response to local police last year raiding several merchants selling CBD products containing trace amounts of THC. Merchants believed the sale was legal under a federal farm bill allowing “industrial hemp,” a form of cannabis with 0.3 percent THC or less.
“It has been a roller coaster,” said Eddie Smith, owner of Into the Mystic, one of the CBD shops in the Kansas City-area raided by police. Smith said CBD products have returned to the shop, but that he never got back the stock that was confiscated last year, which he estimated had a wholesale value of about $4,000.
“We’re going to get there,” Smith said about Kansas legalizing medical marijuana. “Recreational? That’s down the road, and Missouri will get it before Kansas. But everything is one step further.”
