The border battle that has framed Minnesconsin started with booze but has hit with hemp another stage, and not one with just mainstream pot back there, and backstage, by the roadies.
What is legal in one state is not in another. And vise versa. Makes it tough as thick rope to “weed” it all out.
When Minnesota non-marginalized marijuana, as in making it legal, it set in place a whole series of changes in the non-mainstream marketplace for various hemp and/or cannabis derived products. And not just involving the purchase of Grateful Dead tickets.
Drinks infused with garden variety CBD, and virtually no THC, had been found in some grocery store aisles in western Wisconsin for a few months running, but apparently the stigma that can be associated with having it on your shelf caused them to take it off in almost all cases, a store worker said. And there were market conditions effecting this, as the drinks apparently just didn’t sell all that well and were not as popular as joints. One medium-size grocer on the north end of St. Croix County simply sold out what stock had remained, on special in a mini-fridge next to some juicy energy drinks, then did not reorder, back in late 2022.
— A newer local CBD shop made the claim in an ad, back around Christmastime, that seemingly because of loopholes in regulations between states, you can get a higher THC value with some Wisconsin drinks, and maybe gummies, than across the river. —
That said, most of this was before Minnesota legalized weed. Since then, you can’t find these CBD-infused-only drinks such as seltzer water anywhere in my region, and not too much in the other end of the state, either, (with Illinois and its own laws to obey in tow.) They have been replaced, at least in Minnesota, with such juices infused with full-fledged cannabis — the now legal kind — with no CBD juice to be found, as of a few months back. I first noticed this, about a year ago, when going to a major upscale grocer, and the clerks, two of them, had no clue in which aisle to find CBD-infused drinks, which they had carried. With green veggies? Juices? And they weren’t just one row off. It turned out that the newer version, with real THC, was available at their liquor store component separated by a glass door, in a refrigeration unit. At about $25 for a small pack.
And even Wisconsin has its own version of its stronger CBD adaptation, inspired from The Delta, and not that of the Mississippi. Here in the Badger State, you can buy both Delta 8 (the equivalent, to make a caffeine comparison, of cola), and Delta 9 (more like Dew or even the Old School Jolt, before such CBD things rather than caffeine content were even conceived of.)
And now local companies such as Lift Bridge (although having fingers in both states) are jumping into the fray, with THC-infused juices that up the ante to 10 mg of the hemp-derived stuff in their 12-ounce mixes — labeled as two servings worth and no alcohol — up from the typical 5 mg. Then enter their peer from just down the highway, Oliphant Brewing, which has upped the ante to, a couple of notches up the scale, a 25 mg product — for only a few bucks more per pack — and one with 10 mg of both THC and the now-far-to-find CBD. The higher level drink shows, in one such case of its uncanny container art, showcasing a skeleton crawling on hands and knees and named Extinct, as in T Rex, the creature is pictured with that telltale leaf infused into its forehead. On either side, it shows vapes streaming from the eye sockets, but makes no reference to being a Delta product on its packaging.
A suggestion: In your best effort not to become yourself extinct, ha ha, it might be best to consume the 25 mg drinks in “fifths” to make the total only 5 mg, if you know what I mean, (in an NA and AA way to measure that kind of thinking.)
These products are right now the fodder of and for liquor stores and the burgeoning number of dispenseries, as Wisconsin debates fully becoming a state where you can smoke marijuana. There exist legal and marketplace reasons, and the word is out that six packs that are variety packs are coming, not just the four cans, but for right now, the gist is they are slimly found and run about $17.99 or higher with their cost not lessened by volume discount. Delta 8 runs you about three bucks less.
All of this placement in the market, not of a grocery store but as a business niche, means that kratom, which is said by devoted followers to make ebb a variety of ills, and is legal in most states such as Minnesota but not Wisconsin, has come way down in price at smoke shops in the Gopher State. It was once fairly pricy, but now people can buy enough to last a month, or more likely two or three or more as it can have bad side effects in higher doses, for less than a Benjamin. A question remains from this quagmire: It is staunchly illegal to sell kratom in Wisconsin, but are there major fines if you simply have it on your person, (there is now not much monetary incentive to have “intent to deliver.”)
How do the cops respond to the whole disparity, as the downfall of states rights is that any time you cross such a border you encounter a whole new set of laws, and they say ignorance of such is no defensible legal defense. The barflies have an opinion, back from the start of The Changes: If you are in a neighboring state and have THC on your person — but maybe moreso in Hudson than say, New Richmond — the nice officer just might preach to you that hey, you’re just so many yards or a few miles away from one of the 50 states where it’s legal, so just be quickly, but within the speed limit, on your way back there — if you have not indulged and thus are not intoxicated, a small sampling of patrons have said they believe. Of course these are some of the same people who have sworn that when police stop you, and if they have a squad blinker out, you can use that to get out of your own ticket. And if your drivers license, and I assume you have one, shows you live in the purple state where it’s legal, will that cut you any slack with the officer?
A quick review of a month’s worth of police and sheriff’s report records revealed that there were an average of between one and three incidents a week concerning THC possession in the River Falls and St. Croix County jurisdictions. (The most alleged violations seen continue to involve methamphetamine.) The breakdown provided to the Hudson Star-Observer each week by Hudson Police is not that specific in defining the nature of offenses.
All these new situations point up the need to better train the officers who have to deal with them, like they didn’t already have enough to be astute about. In the state of Wisconsin, the minimum education requirement for a police officer is only a high school degree, although individual jurisdictions can require them to continue further with their education. But don’t have to get a degree in molecular chemistry.