MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) — The lawsuit comes over the signage and future enactment of HB445’s Exclusion Provisions.
Mellow Fellow Fun, LLC, Tasty Haze, LLC, The Humble Hemp Shack, LLC, and Seedless Green, LLC, have come together to file a lawsuit against Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall over the signing of House Bill 445, or HB445.
Mellow Fellow Fun, LLC, is a Delaware company that transports and ships federally legal hemp products throughout the U.S., including Alabama. The other three companies are Alabama limited liability companies that either grow, process, wholesale, retail or distribute federally legal hemp products, the lawsuit says.
HB445, sponsored by Andy Whitt, grants the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to regulate all consumable hemp products through the licensure of manufacturers, wholesale distributors and retailers of consumable hemp products.
The bill says that under existing law, products that have “psychoactive cannabinoids found in or derived from hemp may not be sold to minors but are otherwise not regulated.” It also defines THC as “any tetrahydrocannabinol derived from hemp, including, but not limited to, Delta-8,Delta-9 or Delta-10.
Whitt said the bill isn’t a complete ban on the product, but that some will need to change their business model. “Your convenience store, local convenience store, is not a pharmacy. It should not be viewed as one,” he told CBS42. “So they should be selling gas and snacks, not drugs to our kids.”
The lawsuit, filed on June 26, says Ivey is sued “due to her signing of HB445 into law and her role as chief executive overseeing law enforcement.” Marshall is also sued for his “enforcement responsibilities for HB445.”
In this lawsuit, the four companies want an emergency temporary restraining order to prevent the enforcement of the law come July 1.
Hemp and hemp-derived products were considered illegal due to them being included in the definition of marijuana, but this changed when Congress enacted the 2018 Farm Bill. This bill defined hemp as “the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of that plant, including the seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.”
The 2018 Farm Bill, while prohibiting states from blocking the transportation or shipment of hemp or hemp products, it does not strip states of their authority to regulate hemp production.
On May 14, the lawsuit says Ivey signed HB445 into law, establishing a regulatory framework for “consumable hemp products.” In the lawsuit, while it says that parts are in compliance with the 2018 Farm Bill, the compaies say “the Act improperly criminalizes two categories of hemp products, which affects significant sectors of Alabama’s fledgling hemp industry and will converts dozens of lawful business owners into criminals overnight.”
The two products excluded from the category of “consumable hemp products” are smokable hemp products and any products that contain psychoactive cannabinoids created by a chemical synthesis, modification or chemical conversion from another cannabinoid.
The penalty for violating these two bans is considered to be a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The lawsuit says Marshall’s office confirmed that the smokable hemp ban and the synthetic hemp ban is set to go into effect on July 1 while the ABC provisions go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026.
The companies named in the lawsuit say that they will be harmed by HB445 because they would be unable to transport, ship or possess the “banned” products.
“Plaintiffs will also be harmed by the bans because neither they, nor law enforcement, can discern what products are includd in HB445’s unconstitutionally vague definitions,” the lawsuit states.
The claims of reflief in the lawsuit are:
- Count 1: Declaratory Judgement for Express Preemption under the 2018 Farm Bill and the Supremacy Clause
- Count 2: Declaratory Judgement for Violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause
- Count 3: Void of Vagueness
- Count 4: Injunctive Relief
You can read the full complaint filed in the Montgomery Circuit Court below.
The post 4 hemp companies file lawsuit against Gov. Ivey, AG Steve Marshall over HB445 appeared first on WHNT.
