An investigation into an East Dundee business selling hemp products with illegally high levels of Delta-8 THC, the cannabis compound that causes users to get high, has prompted village officials to consider a possible sales ban.
After receiving two anonymous calls about a village business selling products that looked like cannabis, East Dundee police sent an undercover officer into the store to make a purchase, Police Chief Joshua Fourdyce told the East Dundee Village Board meeting at a meeting last week.
While the shop owner had documents showing the products being sold had less than 0.3% THC, a lab analysis of the item purchased indicated the amount was significantly higher, Fourdyce said. After obtaining a search warrant, police officers confiscated about $8,000 in merchandise being sold at the store, he said.
Prior to the Farm Bill Act of 2018, items that tested positive for any level of THC would lead to an automatic arrest, the police chief said. Unless a business owner has a state cannabis dispensary license, it is prohibited from selling products with a THC level of 0.3% or higher, he said.
“This particular industry is not regulated,” he said. “Even the legal cannabis industry has an issue with this.”
Fourdyce asked the board to consider prohibiting the sale of all hemp products in the village, a move that has the support of Village President Jeff Lynam.
“If individuals are selling in town, it seems to me an easy question to answer,” Lynam said. “We just disallow it.”
Trustee Scott Kunze had a different viewpoint.
“I’m against prohibition,” Kunze said. “I don’t think it works. (And) it causes more unintended problems than it solves.”
One concern is putting law-abiding business owners out of business, Kunze said.
Village Trustee Sarah Brittin said there’s no way for store owners to know if the hemp products they are purchasing for sale have illegal levels of THC. The only way to determine that is through a laboratory test such as the one the police department had done, Fourdyce said.
Kunze said he believed regulating the industry is a better approach than an outright ban. He suggested creating something similar to a liquor commission to oversee the sale of hemp products, which could have strict control over how the products are sold and set an age limit for purchase.
“What we are talking about is growing government to regulate this,” Lynam said.
“What is bigger government than banning something outright?” Kunze said. “Whatever your feeling on cannabis, it’s not going away. … I think we should address it rather than ban it.”
Village attorney Kelley Gandurski said because East Dundee is a home rule community, the board can impose whatever regulation it wants on this issue.
Several suburban cities and villages, including Antioch, Tinley Park, Orland Park, Lake Zurich, Waukegan, Des Plaines, Highland Park, Elk Grove Village and Wheeling, have outlawed the sale of hemp products, village staff told the board.
The state of Illinois is working to address the gray areas of the cannabis law under which the sale of delta-8 THC is currently allowed.
Since there’s a law working its way through the legislation, a ban may be “premature for us to do,” Trustee Tricia Saviano said.
Board members agreed to continue the discussion until after staff can learn what other communities are doing. In the meantime, East Dundee police may start purchasing the items from village businesses to test for THC and determine how prevalent the problem is within the village.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
