Montco Grand Jury Unveils 'Public Health Crisis' At PA Smoke Shops

NORRISTOWN, PA — Smoke shops and gas stations around Pennsylvania are selling marijuana and numerous other illegal products with false labeling, a Montgomery County investigative grand jury found, calling their discovery a "public health crisis."

Many of the shops claim their items are hemp or some other legal substance, but contain dangerously high levels of THC. Authorities say that children are in the greatest danger, as they are less informed and more susceptible to the effects of the products.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele called it a "Wild West situation" that needed to be addressed with immediate legislative action.

Officials say the current crisis results from a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp in order to help farmers improve profits. The letter of that bill restricted sales of only the more common delta-9 THC, but not other forms of THC.

In Pennsylvania, it's actually delta-8, not delta-9, that's being sold in many smoke shops and gas stations as loose flower and vapes, officials said.

“The numerous witnesses who testified before the Grand Jury provided a comprehensive and troubling picture of a health crisis, due to the unregulated nature of these products and the smoke shops, gas stations and other retail outlets who sell them in ways that skirt or outright violate current laws," Steele said.

The grand jury reviewed evidence over the course of 10 months, from January through October. They tested 144 different products purchased by undercover detectives at shops around the state, and found that 93.75 percent of them were marijuana with THC levels of 5 percent or higher.

The state's legal limit for THC is 0.3 percent.

The greatest danger, officials noted, is that children can buy these packages having no idea how strong the product is. Current Pennsylvania law provides no age restriction on who can purchase products at a smoke shop.

The DA pointed to a series of incidents involving children being severely sickened from marijuana vape pens and gummies, including an 18-month old Norristown baby who had to be hospitalized at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in January, and a 9 year-old Havertown child who hallucinated and vomited in February.

The grand jury provided a slew of recommendations in their report, including establishing a minimum age requirement of 21 for products containing even trace THC, requiring electronic scanning, and more strictly regulating how THC products can be marketed. Some of these companies employ advertising strategies that explicitly target children or resemble snack foods, investigators found.

They also called for an immediate reconstruction of the Farm Bill to explicitly include delta-8 and delta-10 THC products in the same category of restriction as delta-9.

Smoke shops should also be required to undergo a strict licensing procedure and should not be open to minors, officials said.