Hemp Companies Sue Maryland Over Cannabis Licensing

A Maryland hemp industry association and hemp businesses are suing the
state over cannabis licensing and seized products, the Baltimore Sun
reports. The Maryland Hemp Coalition, 10 businesses owners, and consumers
of the products at the heart of the lawsuit argue that state laws illegally
regulate hemp-derived products that are federally legal and that state
agents are now selectively enforcing “erroneous testing standards” to seize
items from shelves.

The lawsuit also attacks state laws that cap cannabis licenses and how they
are issued, including the state’s lottery for new businesses and social
equity provisions. Nevin Young, the attorney representing the groups, told
the Sun that the state’s licensing system was an unnecessary control
intended to inflate cannabis prices and increase business values. He called
it “communist cannabis.”

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to rule that the social equity program and
limits on the number of cannabis licenses, and how they’re issued, are
unconstitutional.

In a statement, Levi Sellers, president of the Maryland Hemp Coalition,
said the law is “a model of regulatory overreach and economic favoritism,”
and that the state is “stripping the rights of compliant hemp businesses
and handing the market to politically connected cannabis dispensaries.”

The state issued 205 licenses last year via its social equity lottery. The
lawsuit describes that lottery as a “monopolized licensing scheme thinly
disguised as being focused upon ‘social equity’” that has “no rational
relationship to any public safety or health concerns.”