Indiana lawmakers may regulate this THC product. Todd Rokita fears a 'parallel cannabis market'

OG Article

Kayla Dwyer

04-22-2025

Even industry leaders in the cannabis world are asking for regulation on the low-THC products that have flooded corner stores in the last several years ― products like Delta 8 and Delta 10, which are not traditional marijuana, but low-concentration derivatives from a different cannabis plant called hemp.

After about five years of debate, Indiana lawmakers are getting ready to send a bill to Gov. Mike Braun that could do just that.

Their largest opponent, however, is their attorney general, who contends that some of these products are merely cheat codes for mimicking the effects of regular marijuana.

In a letter to legislative leadership and Braun Tuesday, Attorney General Todd Rokita called Senate Bill 478 a “Trojan horse” for legalizing intoxicating THC products.

"The glaring vagueness of this bill threatens public safety and undermines our state’s laws by creating enough loopholes for high-potency, intoxicating THC products to be sold under the guise of craft hemp regulation," he said in a statement to IndyStar. "By permitting the sale of these products, SB 478 intentionally creates a huge drug loophole or parallel cannabis market that operates outside Indiana’s marijuana laws ― laws which remain in place at both state and federal levels."

Cannabanoid explainer: Delta what? Here's how to understand the difference between Delta 8, 9 and 10

Lawmakers and prosecutors who support the bill, however, contend that it doesn’t settle the question of whether these products are actually legal; it merely adds rules and regulations to a marketplace that already exists and is running rampant.

"This is not marijuana," Sen. Travis Holdman, the author of multiple such bills over the years, said in an early committee hearing. "It is low THC, 0.3% or lower. We get all tied up in the discussion over marijuana, so we do nothing, so the problem continues."

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"We can bury our head in the sand one more year, but I ask you, please don’t do that," the Markle Republican said.

A legal gray area has persisted on these products since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp federally. Hemp, or hemp-derived products, must contain 0.3% or less of Delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive compound that creates the "high" from marijuana, to be legal. The marijuana plant, which remains illegal federally and in Indiana as a schedule 1 drug, can have concentrations of THC as high as 10-20%.

Indiana also legalized hemp in 2018 for industrial purposes, categorizing it as a legal agricultural product distinct from marijuana. Hemp can be used to make seed oils and fibers, opening up a market for farmers.

But neither the farm bill, nor Indiana's copycat law, specifically mentioned cannabanoid variations Delta 8 and Delta 10. Since these are hemp-derived products, their sale nationwide has been seen as a legal loophole. Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor Congress have followed up with actual regulations on these products. There is nothing to prevent a corner store from selling gummies with, say, 250 milligrams or even 1,000 milligrams of Delta 8, which for many people could be very intoxicating.

Nor is there anything to prevent children from buying them. School districts across the state are spending money on tools like THC and vape detectors to try to get a handle on this, said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association. It's easier for minors to get access to these gummies than to alcohol, he said.

Senate Bill 478 in its current form would establish the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission as the regulatory body over these products, prohibit their sale to people under 21 years of age and set dosage limits of 100 milligrams per serving and 3,000 milligrams per package. Up to 20,000 retailers could apply for a permit to sell them on a first-come-first-served basis.

It's now being negotiated in a conference committee. The legislative session is anticipated to wrap up this week.

Rokita's letter Tuesday follows up on a similar letter he sent last week to Indiana General Assembly members, just before the House approved the bill 60-37. In 2023, he published an "official opinion" that hemp derivatives like Delta 8 and Delta 10 are illegal. Though his opinion is not legally binding, the lack of clarity has stalled the hemp industry, said Justin Swanson, a lobbyist and president of the Midwest Hemp Council.

"I feel like we could have taken care of this years ago instead of the chaos we’ve had," he told IndyStar. "The status quo is unacceptable for everybody."

Rokita is now asking lawmakers to either ban "all synthetically produced cannabinoids," or at least reduce the 100-mg potency cap to 2.5 mg.

Industry leaders and some lawmakers argue, though, that there is a wide range of tolerances various people can have to these products. It's not unusual, Swanson said, for elderly veterans who've built up a tolerance to take a couple hundred milligrams of Delta 8 a day to ease their PTSD symptoms and not feel intoxicated.

One of the fastest growing user bases is the over-50 crowd, said Justin Journay, founder of 3Chi, a cannabanoid producer in central Indiana. He moved his company here from Ohio after Indiana legalized hemp in 2018 and set in place testing requirements, and soon he started talking to lawmakers around setting some rules in place for the broader array of hemp derivatives. He said he wants regulation because having some bad apples in the space only damages the industry's reputation.

"There was a big learning curve to even understand what I was talking about," Journay said.

Journay himself, a biochemist by training, said he avoided trying hemp products for a long time, because of his negative preconceived notions about them. But then he tried CBD oil to treat a shoulder industry, and, he said, "it was life changing."

He's found lawmakers, and even Braun, open to learning about the industry, even as it remains a divisive subject within the supermajority party.

"If you don’t use cannabis," Journay said, "it’s a lot easier to fall back into reefer madness propaganda."