Hemp plants grow in a field near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
This story originally appeared on WITF.
A Lancaster business owner who produces and sells hemp-based beverages is fed up with the legal patchwork of state and federal rules governing his products, and he’s angry that bigger players in the world of cannabis could unfairly benefit from proposed solutions.
That frustration prompted Jake Sitler, co-owner of Endo Cafe on North Prince Street, to form the Pennsylvania Hemp & Cannabis Guild to unite growers and fellow retailers under a single advocacy banner. His group has about 30 members statewide.
Sitler has worked to draft a regulatory framework with policymakers in Harrisburg for the past few years, citing his own experience of using hemp as a recovery tool after he was struck by a car in 2018 while cycling.
“Whether you look at it as a loophole or a regulatory gray area or whatever, I’ve lived within the letter of the law,” Sitler said during an interview at his cafe on North Prince Street in downtown Lancaster.
He said many of Pennsylvania’s 50-100 legitimate hemp business owners — mostly retailers, but including farmers and processors — want new regulations to clear up any public confusion over the industry and help eliminate bad actors who are tarnishing the market with misleading products. Better regulations, Sitler predicted, would rapidly grow the number of hemp brands in Pennsylvania.
Hemp-derived cannabinoids (as in THC, the main intoxicating compound in cannabis, and CBD, which doesn’t produce a high) could amount to a roughly $791 million to $1.4 billion market in Pennsylvania, according to estimates submitted in July to the PA Hemp Steering Committee by Beau Whitney, of Oregon-based hemp and cannabis research group Whitney Economics.
Compare that to Pennsylvania’s medicinal cannabis sales, which were roughly $1.7 billion in 2024, according to the Department of Health.
Sitler said he would welcome the legalization of recreational cannabis use. Still, he’s concerned that legalization would prop up large-scale cannabis companies that could squeeze out small hemp businesses like his own.
Among the hemp guardrails Sitler’s group asked state officials to consider are rules that his business already follows, including restricting sales to people age 21 and older, banning advertisements that target children and requiring regular, thorough product testing.
Those guidelines could be adopted swiftly by Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, Sitler said, giving the General Assembly more time to draft a comprehensive set of laws governing cannabis production and use.
Shapiro’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Marijuana is strictly regulated under the state’s medical cannabis program, adopted in 2016, and is only available at medical dispensaries with a physician’s prescription. Meanwhile, hemp products, like edibles, seltzers and smokeables, are available to buy online or at many gas stations and other brick-and-mortar stores that do not require a license.
Two products from the same plant, delivering the same high through the same intoxicants — commonly delta-8 or -9 THC. But hemp doesn’t operate within the same heavily monitored legal framework as marijuana.
As long as a hemp product contains less than 0.3% THC in dry weight when the deriving plant is harvested, it fits the legal parameters outlined in the 2018 Farm Bill. It is legally considered marijuana, and thus illegal to sell for recreational purposes, if it surpasses that threshold.
On Aug. 6, Sitler had a face-to-face meeting with officials at the Department of Agriculture, the Pennsylvania State Police and the Liquor Control Board, at which he hoped to convince the agencies they need clearer regulations regarding hemp
Each currently maintains its own guidelines — the Ag Department adheres to federal law, PSP considers any THC-containing substance to be illegal, and the LCB issued an advisory in 2023 that blocked all THC products, including hemp, from being sold in licensed alcohol distributors.
The meeting didn’t result in any progress. Instead, as Sitler described during the first Hemp & Cannabis Guild call last month, “Politics happened.”
“No government agency wanted to take an official stance as to where things were going or where things were heading,” Sitler said.
Reached for comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture cited federal THC limits in a statement, before noting, “No new hemp or food safety regulations are in progress at the Department of Agriculture regarding these products.”
A spokesman for PSP said all THC products are illegal; the LCB did not respond to a request for comment.
Moving forward, Sitler said he will continue to advocate in Harrisburg. He’s trying to get an audience with Shapiro’s staff.
One of the hemp industry’s biggest supporters in the Pennsylvania Senate is Republican Caucus Chair Kristin Phillips-Hill from York County. She helped organize Sitler’s meeting with the three state agencies, along with Democratic Sen. James Malone of Lancaster County.
Phillips-Hill said she and the Sitlers are “continuing to explore what’s possible under current law and how the Sitlers can expand their operations here,” referring to Endo’s planned new facility in York County.
Tom Bobrowicz, a board member of the Hemp & Cannabis Guild and owner of BF Extracts in Erie County, said in an interview that he was disappointed by the lack of substantive response from the state agencies.
He’s also speculated that the major cannabis companies in Pennsylvania, such as Jushi Inc., Curaleaf or Cresco Labs, could have the inside track to meet behind closed doors with lawmakers as they seek to exclude smaller hemp producers from the market, especially if lawmakers pass recreational marijuana legislation that favors large-scale producers over smaller businesses.
Bobrowicz said it’s difficult to operate his hemp-growing business without clear regulations from the state, and now he’s uncertain about what the future holds for the industry.
“I’ve invested my life into it,” Bobrowicz said. “We’ve spent every dime we have building this business.”
Bobrowicz brought many of his concerns to his state senator, Dan Laughlin, a Republican who has introduced several proposals to legalize recreational marijuana use.
Asked about hemp policy changes, Laughlin’s spokesman, Chris Carroll, pointed to the senator’s stalled legislation that would create a Cannabis Control Board that, among other responsibilities, would set testing, labeling and product strength rules for hemp products.
“By putting these standards in place, the board will help keep consumers safe, support public health, and make sure businesses are operating on a fair playing field, while also tackling the problems caused by unregulated hemp products,” Carroll said.
Many of the hemp industry insiders pointed to Minnesota’s guidance under its Office of Cannabis Management as a potential model.
Under that system, businesses register with the office for a license and agree to comply with state requirements, including accurate labeling, product testing, buyers to be at least 21 years of age and banning advertising toward children.
A similar system under Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture is what the Hemp & Cannabis Guild has advocated for in Harrisburg.
Minnesota adopted legislation in 2023 to allow for recreational cannabis use, and is undergoing a transition of its existing hemp and medicinal marijuana markets toward the new broader market it’s created.
A June state Senate hearing on intoxicating hemp products saw some marijuana industry insiders take shots at the intoxicating hemp industry.
Meredith Buettner, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, said medicinal marijuana is “constrained by inflexible rules” while “the flood of unregulated cannabinoids — often sold at gas stations, vape shops, and online — is largely ignored by the Commonwealth’s existing framework.”
“This regulatory vacuum enables products with questionable safety, inconsistent labeling, and unverified potency to be sold to consumers, including minors, without age checks or manufacturing standards,” she said.
And David Clapper, a co-founder and board chairman of Philadelphia-based Ethos Cannabis, testified that he was “surprised and concerned” about the unregulated hemp products in Pennsylvania and he warned that the products would fall into the hands of children.
Sitler said those criticisms are fair, and many of them would be addressed in the regulatory framework he’s proposed.
But Sitler and his supporters may struggle to get their views heard over the lobbyists employed by businesses involved in growing marijuana or selling it to consumers. Last year, those lobbyists spent more than $1.5 million to influence lawmakers, and top executives donated hundreds of thousands to lawmakers’ campaigns, according to Spotlight PA.
Hemp businesses like Sitler’s have lacked that kind of sway in the Capitol. But this month, the national Hemp Beverage Alliance hired a former president of the Pennsylvania Beer Alliance, Jay Wiederhold, to serve as its lead lobbyist in Harrisburg.
Legal disparities between hemp and marijuana sparked a high-profile lawsuit last month in which three subsidiaries of Jushi Inc., a Scranton-based cannabis provider, claim 10 hemp distributors are, essentially, selling marijuana illegally and undermining the state’s medicinal cannabis program.
The lawsuit draws heavily from an investigation conducted by The Philadelphia Inquirer that found some hemp-derived products tested by a lab contained illegal levels of THC and some contaminants.
The backlash toward hemp — from regulators who conflate hemp products with marijuana, and big cannabis firms who want to freeze them out of the recreational market — has worried Sitler and the other entrepreneurs concerned about the future of their businesses.
“I think the worst case scenario is an overly restrictive adult use bill that essentially just lets the big players survive,” Sitler said.
Several local law enforcement officials testified before the Pennsylvania Senate in June about the dangers of intoxicating hemp products, including Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams. She largely warned about the dangers of hemp-derived delta-8 THC — another psychoactive cannabinoid.
“Without oversight, there is no restriction on minors purchasing, possessing or using these harmful products nor can law enforcement monitor sales to minors,” Adams said.
Berks County’s District Attorney agreed with Adams and noted the confusion among the public and retailers regarding hemp and the various THC chemicals, like delta-8, -9 and -10.
And David Gorman, a Deputy Attorney General with the Office of the Attorney General’s Criminal Law Division, spoke about the problems caused by the patchwork of state laws.
“Ambiguity in the law and the conduct of manufacturers has created an environment where there is insufficient guidance regarding what hemp products are legal to sell in PA,” Gorman said. “Consumers and merchants are thus dealing with a virtually unregulated and potentially dangerous product that is easily accessible to all citizens of the Commonwealth.”
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