The Nickel Report

Last December, we reported that President Trump signed into law the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill). Since then, federal and state governments have rushed to implement the new law and state analogs in time for the 2020 growing season. As we have seen with the development of complex new regulatory schemes in other industries, regulatory uncertainty and opportunities abound.

Legalization of medicinal and adult-use cannabis in California has fomented a surge of seed-to-sale companies angling to lure market share from a sea of customers. The water may soon be agitated, however, by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). OEHHA is the lead California agency that oversees implementation of Proposition 65, formally known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. OEHHA recently announced that it has selected cannabis (marijuana), marijuana (cannabis) smoke, cannabis extracts, and delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for review for possible listing under Proposition 65 as chemicals that cause reproductive toxicity. If the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee (DARTIC) determines that these chemicals cause reproductive toxicity based upon “scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles,” marijuana in its various forms will likely join a list of more than 900 chemicals known to the state to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. Companies that cultivate, distribute, and/or sell marijuana and products containing marijuana in California would then be required to warn consumers—and possibly employees and passersby—that exposure to these listed chemicals can cause reproductive harm.

Industrial hemp has officially returned as a legal agricultural commodity in the United States.  On December 20, President Trump signed into law the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, otherwise known as the 2018 Farm Bill. See PL 115-334, December 20, 2018, 132 Stat 4490. The 2018 Farm Bill re-legalizes the production of hemp after the crop was banned for more than eighty years under federal law.  Hemp is a “cousin” of marijuana; both are varieties of the Cannabis sativa L. plant, but hemp does not have the psychoactive properties of marijuana.  Hemp is one of the oldest cultivated industrial crops in the nation.  It was grown as early as the 1600s until the mid-1930s when state and federal laws effectively ended the legal production, sales and use of the cannabis plant.  The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA) officially categorized “marihuana” as a Schedule I controlled substance, which was defined to include “all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L.,” such as hemp.

You may well not have noticed when the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) issued a proposal back in September to list the Kenk’s amphipod (Stygobromus kenki) as an endangered species. 81 Fed. Reg. 67270 (September 30, 2016). Even the Center for Biological Diversity, which pushed for the listing, concedes that this small, eyeless, shrimp-like creature “may be one of the most uncharismatic species considered for protection under the [Endangered Species] Act.” This proposal is worthy of note, however, for at least a couple of reasons.