A federal judge threw out a lawsuit against Kansas’ governor and attorney general that alleged $120,000 worth of delta-8 THC products destroyed by police were legal.
According to Law360, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil ruled Tuesday that the 2018 Farm Act, which legalized hemp, doesn’t make selling hemp-derived products such as delta-8 THC legal.
Murray Dines, owner of Terpene Distribution and THC Recreational Dispensary, filed a lawsuit in June challenging Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s opinion that it was illegal to sell delta-8 THC products in the state.
The background:
- Schmidt wrote in a December 2021 opinion that impairing hemp products are illegal.
- Dines’ Topeka store was raided in April.
- Dines filed suit in July against the attorney general and Gov. Laura Kelly.
- The governor asked in July to be removed from the lawsuit, arguing she “has no connection to enforcement of the challenged Kansas criminal statutes.”
In dismissing the suit Tuesday, the judge wrote that, “in short, no part of the 2018 Farm Act demonstrates an unmistakable focus to benefit plaintiff or other unlicensed possessors and sellers of hemp products.
“The 2018 Farm Act does not create a private right for plaintiff to (possess) and sell hemp and hemp products, either under Section 1983 or as an implied cause of action under the 2018 Farm Act itself.”
