Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said he hopes new hemp laws statewide will help keep products away from young people.
Tennessee lawmakers passed new regulations that limit what products can be sold. It also imposes age restrictions and new fines. Farris said School Resource Officers confiscate vapes from students daily, many of which contain THC.
“You know, they’re not all THC vapes, right, but there’s a big majority that are,” Farris said. “So here we got high school people really smoking what you say, marijuana in a vape with no regulations.”
The new law requires customers be at least 21 years old. Farris said he hopes the change will reduce the confiscations. Farris said, in turn, that will decrease in the number of parents meetings and decisions on level of punishment.
“We are hoping that the challenges of just obtaining the vape itself will be much more difficult and the outcome, especially in the school setting will be much less,” Farris said.
Farris said the lack of regulations in the past created a black market for hemp products. Farris said the new laws puts regulations in place for the consumer to know what they are buying.
“If you’re going to do it, at least we know we’re getting a true product,” Farris said. “Not something that’s going to be either dangerous or on the side of threatening to your life almost.”
Farris said state’s Alcohol Beverage Commission will govern the products. Farris said the ABC oversight will include reasonable checks, inspections and samplings.
“They have to have a background history to sell this,” Farris said. “And so they would be carded just as the same it would with liquor when it comes to selling those vape products and be much, much easier to have control of.”
