To defeat recreational marijuana at the ballot box, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Republican Party have aligned with companies that are already selling high-potency cannabis to Floridians over the counter and online, according to a Herald/Times investigation.
In at least eight instances, the Republican Party of Florida and a political committee run by the governor’s chief of staff have accepted donations this summer from hemp companies whose products tested above the 0.3% legal limit in Florida for total THC, rendering them illegal marijuana in the eyes of state regulators. Some of the products — among 41 purchased by the Herald/Times and tested by a state-certified lab — also contained unauthorized or banned pesticides.
The findings weren’t outliers, though they were disputed by the companies that manufactured and sold the products. Florida regulators say they “regularly identify” products on the market illegally, and state lawmakers worried about psychoactive hemp passed a bill this year to limit its sale.
But the governor, who is campaigning to stop Amendment 3, which would establish a recreational marijuana market in Florida, vetoed the legislation in June – after which campaign donations from hemp companies began to roll in.
A spokesman for DeSantis’ office would not comment for this article, instead directing the Herald/Times to the governor’s explanation of his veto of Senate Bill 1698, in which he called for stronger regulations. Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power, who lobbied DeSantis to veto the bill on behalf of a hemp trade association, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Hemp products have inundated Florida since the governor signed legislation establishing Florida’s hemp program during his first year in office. Today, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services says there are more than 9,500 hemp retailers in the state — so many that Starbucks could move half its North American locations to Florida and still be outnumbered.
Political contributions from companies whose products were tested by the Herald/Times and were found to be above the regulatory limit for potency in Florida were worth more than $500,000. Among the donations:
▪ Lifted Liquids, a parent company to the Wisconsin-based Urb, gave $125,000 to the party. Urb makes a disposable vape pen that when tested contained 5.92% total THC. The CEO said the donation was unrelated to Amendment 3.
▪ Mood Product Group, an Oklahoma company, gave $50,000 to the party. Their Pluto flower purchased online had a total THC of 10.3%.
▪ Highly Concentr8ted, a Sarasota company whose canister of Phantom THCA flower had a total THC of 16%, gave $10,000.
Torch Enterprises did not respond to a request for comment. The other three companies disputed the findings, pointing to their own independent lab results as evidence that, they said, refuted the Herald/Times’ analysis.
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More broadly, companies whose products were tested by the Herald/Times disputed the lab’s method for testing, the timing of the testing and said they had no control over contamination after their products left their facilities.
Touching on a point of contention over how the Florida Department of Agriculture determines and regulates hemp potency – rules that served as the basis for the findings for this article — a spokesperson for Mood Product Group argued that even the Herald/Times’ own results showed its flower “meets the definition of lawful ‘hemp’ under both federal law … and Florida state law.”
Under state and federal Department of Agriculture regulations, hemp is cannabis that contains a total THC concentration of 0.3% or less of delta-9-THC, the compound widely known for producing the mind-altering effects associated with marijuana, and THCA, which converts to delta-9-THC when heated.
Anything under that threshold can be sold over the counter to customers who are at least 21, even if it contains similar, intoxicating substances like delta-8-THC, which is legal in Florida. Anything more powerful is considered marijuana, and is illegal outside Florida’s medical marijuana program.
Matthew Curran, director of the state Department of Agriculture’s Division of Food Safety, reviewed the Herald/Times’ findings and said they “appear to be consistent with what we regularly identify in our testing program.” He said more than 1.1 million packages of hemp products have been pulled from shelves since June 2023 over violations of state law.
A spokesperson said the Florida Department of Agriculture “has pursued criminal charges for hemp that is in violation of Florida law” but did not provide details in time for publication. According to Florida law, a person selling illegally potent hemp is only behaving criminally if they have “a culpable mental state greater than negligence.”
But some in the hemp industry say the Department is going beyond its authority by expressly limiting all but tiny amounts of THCA – which only becomes psychoactive when heated. They say only delta-9-THC is expressly limited in state and federal law, and that a recent Supreme Court ruling and a voter-approved change to the Florida Constitution in 2018 limit government agencies’ ability to interpret the law when it is vague.
“Where statutes are ambiguous, agencies are far less free to interpret things the way that they see fit,” said Philip Snow, general counsel for MC Nutraceuticals, a manufacturer and distributor of hemp materials headquartered in Colorado. “So, I think that’s probably a large source of the confusion that exists in your backyard in Florida.”
Billions at stake
The political contributions from hemp companies reflect an alignment this election season between DeSantis, Republicans and hemp companies against Amendment 3. They say the amendment, as proposed, will push out the mostly small businesses that grow, distribute and sell hemp in Florida.
“Generally I do not comment on our company’s political donations. However, I can say we agree with DeSantis’s support of small businesses,” Highly Concentr8ted CEO Maria Abney wrote by email.
It’s a fight over billions of dollars in future profits: While a potential recreational marijuana market could be worth $7 billion over time, according to Matt Hawkins, founder of Entourage Effect Capital, one industry estimate valued the state’s hemp market at $10 billion in 2022.
The hemp industry’s foremost concern is Trulieve, Florida’s biggest medical marijuana company, which has plunged more than $140 million into the campaign to promote Amendment 3.
“I don’t have the tens of millions of dollars Trulieve has to fight this,” said Patrick O’Brien, owner of Florida-based Chronic Guru farms and dispensaries, who gave $100,000 through one of his companies to a political committee run by the governor’s chief of staff. “I got a grass roots company with over a hundred team members currently that I’m responsible for and I figured that I would partner up with the loudest voice in the room.”
A spokesman for Trulieve said there’s room for everyone in a recreational marijuana marketplace.
“The amendment clearly allows for new and different kinds of licenses,” said spokesman Steve Vancore, adding that the measure “will expand the market, give small businesses a chance to engage as well, and expand competition.”
Public Health Concerns
DeSantis has also cast the campaign as a matter of public health, arguing that legalizing recreational marijuana will undercut Florida’s quality of life.
But some of the products sold by companies that gave to the Republican Party of Florida were also found by the Herald/Times’ investigation to have pesticides that are unregistered for use on hemp, or are banned altogether.
▪ Hidden Hills Club LLC, a Las Vegas company, makes a THCA Pinkonade Razzberry vape cartridge that contained chlordane, a pesticide with links to cancer banned by the federal government since 1988, and myclobutanil, a fungicide banned for inhalation by a Florida rule, which releases hydrogen cyanide when vaped or smoked. Jordan Marquez, a representative of the company, which gave $20,000, challenged the accuracy of Modern Canna’s results, saying the company’s own “comprehensive testing and independent laboratory results consistently confirm the absence of pesticides.”
▪ Uplift Health and Wellness LLC, a St. Petersburg company that makes a Kush Cake pre-rolled joint, gave $2,500. The joint had nearly 62 times the regulation limit of a pesticide that can cause shortness of breath when inhaled. High enough exposure to the chemical, chlormequat chloride, can even be fatal, according to the New Jersey Health Department. Company consultants pushed back on the testing and said there was likely “external contamination.”
▪ Qilo Company LLC, which makes a Peanut Butter Blitz pre-rolled joint, gave $2,000. Testing found the joint had myclobutanil. The company, from Sunrise, didn’t comment.
DeSantis also warns that Amendment 3 will make Florida smell like weed — even though hemp looks and smells so similar to marijuana that some state attorneys announced they would largely stop prosecuting small-time possession cases after the governor signed a bill establishing Florida’s hemp program in 2019.
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And while his Health Department is spending millions on commercials — including one that claims increasingly powerful marijuana products have been “engineered by corporations … to rewire the human mind” — some of the flower hemp products tested by the Herald/Times were comparable in potency with the marijuana sold at the state’s medical dispensaries.
O’Brien, who grows cannabis, trains future hemp cultivators and owns an Orlando lounge where customers can drink high-potency hemp tonics, doesn’t argue about the potency of the products he sells. One hemp flower sold on his website, Venom OG, is marketed at a strength of 36.51%.
“Will these THC products get me high?” asks a small Q&A section. “Definitely!”
O’Brien just says that the Florida Department of Agriculture is wrong that state and federal law treat his products as illegal, because they’re jammed with THCA – not delta-9-THC.
Certificates of analysis show that some of the flower products available in Florida’s medical marijuana market contain relatively low levels of delta-9-THC and high levels of THCA.
The Florida bill DeSantis vetoed this year would have effectively banned psychoactive hemp products, and included language that would have explicitly prohibited all but negligible amounts of THCA in hemp. Former Rep. Tommy Gregory, R-Lakewood Ranch, said at the time that he and his colleagues had been “duped” into signing off on a hemp market they thought would be largely used for industrial purposes like making textiles.
Instead, Gregory said, “they’re using hemp products to make intoxicating substances.”
Gregory and Senate-sponsor Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland, didn’t return requests for comment.
After DeSantis vetoed the bill, hemp executives reportedly discussed needing to raise $5 million to defeat the marijuana amendment to “keep our end of the veto.” DeSantis’ office said there was no quid pro quo.
DeSantis acknowledged the need to better regulate the hemp market in June when he vetoed Senate Bill 1698. ” In an explanation of his veto, he encouraged the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to continue rooting out “products that violate Florida law.”
But he said the legislation would have created “debilitating regulatory burdens” for hemp retailers.
“Small businesses are the cornerstone of Florida’s economy,” DeSantis wrote.
THE FUTURE OF HEMP
The fight in Florida is one part of an ongoing battle across the country, as hemp and marijuana are pitted against one another in the movement to legalize recreational marijuana.
In California, where recreational marijuana is legal, Gov. Gavin Newsom in September banned “THC-containing hemp products” despite industry efforts to stop him. In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson signed an executive order for a similar ban on Aug. 1 that has since been stalled by legal roadblocks. Another ban is in place in Colorado, restrictions are being debated in Ohio and federal legislation may come into play with a recent bill proposed by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
In Florida, even if Amendment 3 passes, effectively cementing recreational marijuana in the state Constitution, hemp will still be vulnerable.
At the recent Champs Trade Show at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, hemp businesses expressed concern about the future of their industry — and general agreement with DeSantis.
“As a Black man from Florida, it’s probably the only thing I’ll agree with him on,” said Omari Anderson, whose Atlanta-based company, The Best Dirty Lemonade, sells delta-9-THC-infused lemonade. Anderson, who started mixing THC in family juice recipes when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, personally supports Amendment 3 but thinks hemp businesses will suffer.
Throughout the afternoon, a cannabis-leaf mascot walked around some of the 750 businesses gathered to display glass bowls and bongs, gummies, joints and vape pens. At a booth for MUNCHIES!, in front of a display of pre-rolled joints, J.W. Songer, national sales manager for Pack Labs, gestured to a table across the room displaying jars of hemp flower.
“It’s a different product, but it smokes the same” as marijuana, he said, adding that customers get a similar “sensation” and a similar smell. But he stressed that marijuana and hemp that meets the requirements of the Farm Bill are not the same.
Songer has worked for 12 years in marijuana, hemp and vape products across the country. If Amendment 3 passes, Songer gives it maybe 18 months before Florida’s hemp industry is banned. After an initial rush to dispensaries, he predicts that customers will want to return to the lower prices in the hemp industry — and then Florida will implement a ban like those in other states.
“Either regulate our industry to make it truly safe so no bad actors are doing anything, or legalize everything at a federal level, to where everybody’s on the same playing field,” he said. “Anybody who’s in this industry for the right reasons would move to the right side.”
He said the states that best regulate cannabis — for the economy and customer safety — have medicinal and recreational marijuana, and hemp markets, because “the black market is lowest.”
“They’re going to exist if you ban them or not,” he said.
