House commerce panel begins work on omnibus cannabis bill

Minnesota’s cannabis laws continue to be tweaked.

The House omnibus cannabis bill would remove the requirement that beverages with no more than 10 milligrams of THC be labeled as two servings, create a lower-potency hemp wholesaler license and give visiting patients to Minnesota the same rights as medical cannabis patients in the state, as well as other technical changes.

The House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee did a walk-through of a delete-all amendment to HF1615 Wednesday and plan to take action on the bill Thursday. Rep. Zack Stephenson (DFL-Coon Rapids) is the sponsor.

The bill will also help the Office of Cannabis Management by creating a testing facility variance, ensuring telehealth is accessible for medical cannabis patients, strengthening protections for medical cannabis patients, smoothing the hemp licensing process and making technical changes to provide more clarity, said Interim Director Eric Taubel.

“The omnibus covers a number of key areas that are going to help the agency achieve its mission over the next several years,” Taubel said.

Minnesota Cannabis and Drug Policy Resource Center officials support many of the provisions in the bill, but are asking legislators to make more changes, including connecting patients’ dosing plans to their registry profile, extending civil and criminal protections to visiting patients and clarifying that health care facilities must accommodate all forms of legal cannabis.

Glenn McElfresh, co-founder of Plift, appreciates the change to one serving per can containing no more than 10 milligrams of THC, saying that companies stopped launching their products in Minnesota because of the current requirement to label those cans as two servings. The change means Minnesota companies can sell outside the state and out-of-state companies can sell their products in Minnesota, he said.

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The following are selected bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus cannabis bill:

• HF1271 (West)
• HF1310 (Stephenson)
• HF1615 (Stephenson)
• HF1634 (Stephenson)
• HF1672 (Reyer)
• HF1734 (West)
• HF1735 (West)
• HF1877 (Huot)
• HF1735 (West)
• HF2443 (Her)