California lawmakers are shutting the door on delta-8 and delta-10 THC completely, whilst different intoxicating hemp merchandise will not be bought in smoke retail outlets, gasoline stations and comfort shops within the identify of public well being and protection.
Pending Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature, Meeting Invoice 8 will outlaw artificial hashish merchandise and inhalable hashish merchandise containing cannabinoids derived from hemp. The Meeting voted, 73-1, to concur with Senate amendments on Sept. 13, after the higher chamber voted, 37-0, the day before today to cross the invoice.
Subsidized through Meeting Majority Chief Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, the 82-page regulation additionally seeks to make bigger the authority for state and native enforcement companies to check out, clutch and break illegal merchandise.
As well as, it will combine merchandise containing concentrated cannabinoids derived from hemp, rather then CBD isolate, into the state’s authorized and controlled hashish provide chain. Apart from a natural CBD isolate, all different merchandise would fall underneath the definition of a hashish product.
Now being ready for the governor, those provisions within the invoice come with an efficient date of Jan. 1, 2028.
Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, offered the regulation for a 3rd studying on Sept. 12 within the higher chamber.
“A.B. 8 seeks to give protection to public well being through getting rid of get right of entry to to intoxicating hemp merchandise out of doors of approved dispensaries,” she mentioned. “[The bill] will give state companies and native governments the equipment they want to give protection to our youngsters from artificial merchandise.”
The invoice’s passage follows government motion through Newsom in September 2024, when he issued emergency rules to require that hemp meals, beverage and nutritional merchandise supposed for human intake don’t have any detectable THC or different intoxicating cannabinoids according to serving, create a minimal age to buy hemp merchandise to 21, and restrict the selection of servings of hemp merchandise to 5 according to package deal.
“We can no longer sit down on our palms as drug peddlers goal our youngsters with unhealthy and unregulated hemp merchandise containing THC at our retail shops,” Newsom mentioned on the time. “We’re taking motion to near loopholes and building up enforcement to forestall kids from gaining access to those unhealthy hemp and hashish merchandise.”
In June 2025, the California Division of Public Well being (CDPH) issued a understand of proposed rulemaking to apply thru, estimating that the ban would motive 115 companies to near and greater than 18,400 jobs to be misplaced inside 5 years of implementation, with greater than $3.1 billion in misplaced income.
When the state Meeting handed A.B. 8 that very same month, prior to sending it over to the Senate, Aguiar-Curry mentioned her 2025 invoice aimed to treatment the accidental penalties of regulation that she authored in 2021 to create a “well-regulated and protected hemp marketplace” for Californians.
“Unhealthy actors have abused it to promote intoxicating hemp merchandise out of doors dispensaries and with out age limits. That is unlawful and is basically unacceptable,” Aguiar-Curry mentioned in June. “A.B. 8 is crucial step ahead in protective our youngsters and making sure intoxicating merchandise are bought safely and legally. By means of ultimate unhealthy loopholes, we’re reinforcing our dedication to accountable law and supporting suffering felony companies competing with unlawful markets.”
Intoxicating hemp merchandise, which frequently aren’t topic to the over the top tax or regulatory constructions of state-sanctioned hashish markets, undercut companies that pay a top rate to function and supply significant state and native investment. Underneath A.B. 8, all concentrated cannabinoids derived from hemp, rather then CBD isolate, could be topic to the state’s 15% excise tax.
Whilst A.B. 8 represents a victory for California’s authorized hashish companies, the triumph can have been better.
Specifically, a Senate modification got rid of language from the invoice that may have repealed the requirement for the California Division of Tax and Price Management (CDTFA) to extend the hashish excise tax to make up for misplaced income from the 2022 removing of the state’s hashish cultivation tax.
Whilst the state’s excise tax mechanically larger from 15% to 19% on July 1 because of the cheap trailer that Newsom orchestrated in 2022, California lawmakers handed regulation this consultation to roll again that fee to fifteen% and droop the CDTFA from expanding it till no less than June 30, 2028. That invoice could also be heading to Newsom’s table.
The Senate additionally amended A.B. 8 to explain that cannabinoid merchandise derived completely from business hemp is also shipped throughout the state with out getting into the authorized marketplace—supplied they aren’t bought in California—or shipped out of California through a licensee. This aligns with interstate trade protections supplied within the 2018 Farm Invoice, which federally legalized business hemp cultivation.
Some other Senate modification supplies that, till Jan. 1, 2028, authorized hashish producers can most effective use cannabinoid concentrates and extracts which might be manufactured or processed completely from hashish got from an authorized cultivator.
In a invoice research, lawmakers referenced a February 2025 white paper titled The Nice Hemp Hoax, which used to be co-authored through Tiffany Devitt, a board member for the California Hashish Operators Affiliation (CaCOA) and the director of regulatory affairs for authorized store March and Ash. The white paper integrated an research of 104 merchandise advertised as hemp from 68 manufacturers, discovering that 95% contained chemically synthesized cannabinoids.
Two California shops, March and Ash and Embarc, and the United Meals and Industrial Employees (UFCW) Native 135 subsidized the file, with checking out supplied through Endless Chemical Research Labs.
“Moreover, over 88% of examined merchandise exceed the utmost quantity of THC allowed to be labeled as hemp merchandise in California,” consistent with the A.B. 8 research. “The white paper discovered that, on reasonable, vape merchandise supposedly derived from hemp had THC equivalency ranges 268% above the state’s threshold for adult-use hashish.”
In opposing A.B. 8, the Hermosa Coalition for Drug-Loose Youngsters argued that Californians by no means voted to legalize intoxicating hemp merchandise once they handed Proposition 64 to legalize adult-use hashish within the November 2016 election.
“We also are adverse to integration since the knowledge at the harms of those merchandise are most effective proceeding,” the coalition wrote. “Moreover, California’s felony hashish trade may be very poorly regulated. How the heck can it care for hemp? THC is THC. Whether or not it’s from marijuana or hemp, it’s wreaking a wide variety of public well being hurt.”
The California Division of Hashish Keep an eye on (DCC) reported that the regulation would value more or less $2.5 million to put in force subsequent fiscal yr and roughly $5.8 million in ongoing annual prices, consistent with the California Senate Appropriations Committee, which licensed the invoice in a unanimous vote final month.
Amy O’Gorman Jenkins, the chief director of the CaCOA, which subsidized A.B. 8, referred to as the Legislature’s passage “a large win.”
“By means of bringing hemp-derived THC merchandise underneath right kind oversight whilst holding get right of entry to to protected non-intoxicating merchandise, we’re one step nearer to in spite of everything growing a degree taking part in box our authorized hashish companies deserve,” she mentioned. “A.B. 8 attracts a transparent line: In California, intoxicating hemp merchandise will have to not undercut public well being, formative years protection or the integrity of our felony hashish marketplace.”
