General Laws committee rejects House committee substitute for House Bill 393 on hemp products

The Missouri House Committee on General Laws voted down the House committee substitute for House Bill 393 on a 5–7 roll call, ending the committee's consideration of the substitute Thursday.

The substitute would have set testing, labeling and distribution rules for intoxicating hemp products (including THCA) and included several substantive compromises developed by the bill sponsor and stakeholders, the sponsor told the committee. The sponsor said, "we had 11 stakeholders plus myself in a room hashing through the bill trying to come up with solutions and compromises," and listed the principal changes in the substitute.

Why it matters: supporters said the substitute aimed to regulate an emerging market while protecting children and creating a predictable licensing and testing regime; opponents said the package included significant substantive changes that had not been publicly vetted and raised enforcement and safety concerns.

The substitute lowered a proposed per-serving potency cap to 5 milligrams (the sponsor said an earlier recommendation had been 100 milligrams), set a 4,500-gallon threshold tied to…