Oregon Regulates Delta-8 THC, Expands Police Authority Against Illicit Cannabis

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) on Monday signed a bill giving police more authority to crack down on illicit cannabis grows, limit the THC in hemp products, and allow for more product testing, KOBI-5 reports.

Steven Marks, executive director of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), said the bill makes the state Department of Agriculture “look a bit more like the OLCC,” allowing them to do background checks, increase staffing, and have more oversight of rurally produced products produced under the state’s hemp program.

“Hemp producers in some of the products that you were getting in mainstream grocers and retailers, the CBD products had too much THC in them so they could actually make you intoxicated … [The bill] now creates the crime or if you’re not in a state program or it’s not homegrown, it’s a class A misdemeanor to grow cannabis not in a state program so law enforcement can go check it out.”— Marks to KOBI-5

The legislation also sets up a task force for tracking how to monitor illegal grows and how cannabis will be regulated in the future.

Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Sickler said he hoped the bill will “help get some compliance and control on a lot of these grows that are not operating on the up and up.”

The bill, passed last month, also regulates hemp-derived cannabinoids such as Delta-8 THC.