Hemp Hemp Hooray owner Kevin Halderman has been selling hemp products like edibles, decorative items and vapes since 2019. His Columbia store stayed open despite changing consumer tastes, a global pandemic and the legalization of marijuana in Missouri. But five years later, legal and market challenges forced him to close his doors.
The move follows Missouri Governor Mike Parson Implementing Regulation this month This could result in the sale of popular cannabis-based drugs becoming illegal.
Halderman said he was already facing market pressure from an oversaturated CBD and THC market, but the executive order was the nail in the coffin.
“Our lease was actually up at the end of next month, so we had to make a decision,” he said. “So we made it official the day he signed the order.”
Parsons’ order targets all psychoactive products derived from cannabis. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft refused to sign the emergency decreewhich delayed the ban by at least six months. Halderman said that had he known about the delay, he would have closed the store anyway because of the impending danger.
“If we had to go so far that we could no longer sell drugs, that would account for about 50% of our sales,” he said.
Halderman said the influx of new dispensaries that have sprung up since marijuana was legalized in Missouri has also hurt business.
“I think the saturation of the industry has really hurt some of our mom-and-pop shops, and not just me,” he said. “There are a lot of traditional CBD shops that supported the industry, and then we just lost our customer base with recreational use.”
“Many other problems were some of the illegal (products) that were being imported, probably from China. That made the market very difficult to work in, and you had to produce extremely high volumes to be price competitive. And that really hurts the whole industry.”
Halderman said foreign companies shipping their products to Missouri have also hurt the hemp industry because their products appeared to be the catalyst for Parson’s order. At the press conference announcing the order, Parson focused on products imported from other states and did not address the impact the ban would have on local producers.
“Nobody in this room can tell me where this product is coming from,” Parson said at the press conference announcing the order, referring to a cannabis edible that was indistinguishable from a regular bag of candy from a distance. “My guess is these products are coming from overseas. It could be China, it could be foreign suppliers that are providing this to our children here in the United States.”
At the press conference, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said he was conducting an investigation “to determine the source of these illegal products.”
Halderman and others in Missouri’s hemp industry have said they support the regulation but believe it has been unfairly maligned.
“This store that we’re in has been around for years,” he said. “I mean, we’ve paid a lot of taxes up here, we’ve paid a lot of rent and I think we’ve done everything we can to make sure our products are safe.”
The Hemp Hemp Hooray location in Osage Beach will remain.
