Gov. Kay Ivey signed a new law restricting sales of THC products, but local stores say the law will heavily impact their business and drive their customers to neighboring states, addictive medications, or the black market.
RSN spoke to stores selling THC products and found at least two stores will have half of their product and sales impacted.
“A large portion of this store — now we can’t have it. We can’t have any of this stuff. ”
One store employee said many customers were elderly, had PTSD, had high blood pressure, or had problems sleeping.
“Their insurance won’t cover pain pills,” the employee said. “It’s going to affect them because now they have to resort to taking meds again.”
Employees say this law will only encourage people to drive to Florida — or take more extreme measures.
“A lot of my customers are upset because now they’re going to have to go back to the streets or do things they wouldn’t want to do, and there are risks involved.”
The store said over half of their sales were from THC products — and another local vape store said the same.
“(Customers) would have to try to find different ways to find these options, and it might not be the legal route,” an employee from another store said. “They might run over to another state looking for something, getting into more trouble.”
“Every single one of us is going to be hit,” one vape store employee said. “It’s going to affect the store personally, especially our pay.”
Employees said no products in their store would stand a chance against the new legislation restricting gummies to 10 milligrams per individually-wrapped item or 40 milligrams per package. Those products would only be able to continue to be sold if stores got special licensing from the ABC Board.
“The only thing in this store that would be able to stay are drinks. There’s not a gummy low enough, there’s not a vape, there’s not a pre-roll, there’s nothing low enough,” an employee said.
Chad “Chig” Martin, the owner of Honeysuckle Hemp who is also making a run for governor, said the law would be “detrimental” to his business.
“Just banning the smokeable products alone was somewhere around 80 to 85% of our sales,” he said. “Trying to live off of 15% of your regular sales isn’t going to cut it.”
He said two-thirds of his business came from people with medical conditions or the elderly.
Martin estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable sales for Alabama would be lost, and he further estimated some 6,000 employees would lose their jobs.
He said customers would have to pay even more to get the same amount for THC products they’d purchased in the past — he used an example of someone who purchased gummies to use 50 milligrams a night to help them sleep.
“Technically, that person can buy the 50 milligrams, but now they can’t afford it,” he said. “They can’t afford to buy five individually wrapped pieces every single day.”
He agreed many people would be sent to illegal routes to replace what the Alabama government took away.
“You’re going to send most of the people back to the black market, where everybody knows that fentanyl is running rampant,” he said. “You take away all these people’s medicine that’s been helping them, you’re going to see an uptick in violent crime in Alabama, and it’s going to be directly related to them passing this bill.”
He also agreed people would be driven to go across state lines to buy these products — taking revenue away from Alabama.
“We’re building tax dollars more and more for our neighboring states,” he said.
One vape shop employee said the new law was a huge and unforeseen blow to their business.
“I never in a million years thought this would happen,” they said.
