By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
(Note: This story provides the basics of a new law that will go into effect next Tuesday, July 1. Part 2, which will be published next week, will include reactions from local law enforcement, as well as merchants who sell smokable hemp products and individuals who use them.)
For the past several years, Atmore residents who sought a legal alternative to marijuana could find it on the shelves of vape shops and convenience stores across the city. That will end next Tuesday, July 1.
A new law, one that evolved from HB 455, a bill formulated and approved by members of the Alabama House and signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey, not only criminalizes all “smokable hemp products,” including THCA and all Delta variants, but makes possession or sale of these products a more severe crime than possession of hard drugs.
Under provisions of the new legislation, gummies and other non-smokable hemp products will still be legally available in Alabama.
But possession of even a small amount of any smokable hemp product — flowers, ready-rolled cigars or cigarettes and vapes — can lead to a person’s arrest on a Class C felony charge. Possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl and other controlled substances is only a Class D felony.
Sale and possession of hemp products were legalized in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, which removed hemp from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act. The major difference between hemp and marijuana is that hemp is a mixture of male and female cannabis plants, and its flowers produce less than 0.3-percent THC.
While the federal agricultural legislation allows possession and use of smokable hemp products, states can implement stricter regulations, including bans on specific products like smokable hemp flower, if lawmakers so choose.
Full enforcement of HB445’s licensing and product regulations will not begin until January 1, 2026, allowing retailers time to comply.