In an official opinion released last week, Indiana Attorney General Curtis T. Hill Jr. said that CBD products “remain unlawful in Indiana” citing cannabis’ Schedule I status under federal law.
“The state and deferral laws that place cannabidiol in the category of Schedule I controlled substances do not hinge on the degree or prevalence of the pharmacological effects of a substance on a person, for those effects vary from person to person, substance to substance, and component to component,” he wrote. “Simply put, cannabidiol is a Schedule I controlled substance because marijuana (Cannabis sativa) is a Schedule I controlled substance.”
Hill’s opinion provides for CBD use by patients with epilepsy, as allowed by Act 1148 signed into law earlier this year, and that while Indiana enacted an industrial hemp program in 2014, the federal law permitting those programs did not legalize CBD production.
The opinion comes less than two months after Indiana Excise Police – the enforcement arm of the state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission – confiscated CBD products at retailers throughout the state but later indicated they would halt enforcement if the products fell under the legal 0.3 percent THC federal definition of hemp.
According to a FOX59 report, Indiana State Police have said that the 2014 law legalized hemp products produced with industrial hemp. However, in an interview with the station, Hill maintained that CBD remains “unlawful” under the “current state of the law.”
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