California sees 99.7% compliance in crackdown on intoxicating hemp products, Newsom says
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that nearly all licensed businesses across California are complying with emergency state regulations aimed at removing intoxicating hemp products from the market.
Newsom proposed the restrictions last September, citing an urgent need to protect children.
According to the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 99.7% of business licenses inspected in 2025 have complied with rules prohibiting the sale of industrial hemp food, beverages and dietary supplements containing THC or other intoxicating cannabinoids.
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Since last September, ABC agents have visited 11,445 licensed establishments, seizing 7,151 illegal products from 148 locations.
'We are doing our part to ensure intoxicating hemp products are out of the reach of vulnerable groups like children. We must always put the safety of Californians first,' Newsom said in a statement.
With the restrictions in place, retailers are now prohibited from selling products made with hemp THC, an intoxicating cannabis compound, and various types of medicinal products made with CBD, a nonintoxicating compound, according to SFGate.
The new regulations now require consumers to be 21 years old or older to purchase hemp products and additional cannabinoids intended for human consumption and limit the serving size to five.
The governor said the lax rules have made it easier for kids to access intoxicating hemp-based products, which are typically sold at liquor outlets, gas stations and smoke shops, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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However, critics told SFGate that 'the Newsom administration was abusing the emergency rulemaking process to pass the hemp THC ban and that banning hemp THC would have disastrous effects on medical patients who rely on hemp to treat a wide range of health conditions.
The restrictions, initially slated to expire on March 25, were extended that same month. According to the state Public Health Department, they are now expected to expire on Sept. 25.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California's economy
President Trump promised a new "golden age" for America, but it's been anything but that for Los Angeles, with its dependence on trade and immigrant labor - two backbones of the region's economy. First, the president's tariffs cut deeply into traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and now his push to arrest undocumented immigrants at work sites, which has spurred massive protests after Trump deployed the National Guard, threatens a one-two punch to a region just starting its recovery from January's firestorms. "The reality is that the U.S. economy is largely today dependent upon foreign born labor - and in California more so," said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank in Washington. "For the country as a whole, we're getting towards 1 out of 5 jobs being filled currently by somebody who was born abroad. In California, it's more like 1 in 3." The crackdown, depending on its scope and scale, could come at a price for industries across Los Angeles and California that have become increasingly dependent on immigrants, here legally or not, economists say. The surge in international migration in the last two decades - both by legal and undocumented workers - has been key to the growth of California's economy. A number of industries such as construction, leisure and hospitality, health care and agriculture rely heavily on immigrant workers. Foreign-born Californians account for one-third of all workers at restaurants and warehouses; about 40% in home healthcare and child day care; almost 50% at trucking and lodging businesses; and 60% at services for landscaping and cleaning buildings, according to a Times analysis of 2022 Census Bureau data. 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Many spend their day watching screens, he said: "How much of that is health? How much of that is pain? How much of that is psychic pain? It would be great if we had more reportage on this." In the longer term, there also may be a paradoxical effects on wages, especially in California, Texas and Florida, according to a forthcoming research paper in the American Economic Review titled "Immigration, Innovation and Growth." If all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were deported, after five years, California would see average annual wages decrease by $970, with Florida seeing a decrease of $560, according to the paper. Texas would see a decrease of $187, according to the paper. The theory is that the more productive people you have in an economy, the more it grows, said Tarek Hassan, a professor of economics at Boston University. With immigrants filling jobs, it frees up others to invent, create new patents and figure out ways to make the economy more efficient, which generates wealth. "Immigration in general is good for economic growth," said Hassan, who is a co-author of the paper. "This idea that immigrants take away Americans' jobs is not correct." Meanwhile, the local economy already has taken a hit from the on-and-off tariffs Trump announced in April, with the Port of Los Angeles processing 25% less cargo than forecast for May, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said in an interview. That has resulted in dwindling job opportunities at the port, which along with the neighboring Port of Long Beach - the largest port complex in the country - provide jobs for thousands of dockworkers, heavy equipment operators and truck drivers. Nearly half of the longshoremen who support operations at the Los Angeles port went without work over the last two weeks. Over the last 25 work shifts, only 733 jobs were available for 1,575 longshoremen looking for work, he said. "They haven't been laid off, but they're not working nearly as much as they did previously," Seroka told The Los Angeles Times. "Since the tariffs went into place, and in May specifically, we've really seen the work go off on the downside," Seroka said. The decline in shipping has ripple effects on L.A.'s economy. A 2023 report found that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contributed $21.8 billion in direct revenue to local service providers, generating $2.7 billion in state and local taxes and creating 165,462 jobs, directly and indirectly. The slowdown in activity also has spread into surrounding communities. Businesses near the ports rely on a robust community of workers to frequent their establishments. "We're starting to hear from small businesses and restaurants in the harbor area that their customer patronage is trending downward," Seroka said. "Outside of COVID, this is the biggest drop I've seen in my career." Then there's the effect that deploying the National Guard and the turmoil it is having on the tourism industry, even though the disruptions have been limited to certain locales, said Jackie Filla, president of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles. "I'm hearing there have been just significant cancellations all across the city," Filla said, though she noted it's too soon to have hard data. "People are nervous to come to Los Angeles." International travelers also may be concerned about being detained, with Los Angeles clearly a target of the federal government for immigration enforcement actions, she said. And even if the immigration turmoil ends soon, the federal crackdown hurts L.A.'s brand as a tourist destination, which heavily leans on status as a global hub, with its diversity of cuisine, people and experiences, Filla said. "People rightfully have a lot of questions. They are calling hotels and wondering what the environment and atmosphere is like, and if they're going to be safe," she said. (Staff writers Suhauna Hussain and Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this article.) Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.


Business Journals
5 hours ago
- Business Journals
Daily Digest: End of an era at Fisherman's Wharf, Scale AI eyes record funding from Meta
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New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
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When you're tired, stress can be more difficult to manage and, potentially, can do more long-term damage,' said Rodgers. 'CBD sleep products can be an effective natural sleep aid. Those same calming effects that make CBD great for stress relief also make it an effective base ingredient for sleep aids, along with compounds like CBN (cannabinol), melatonin, chamomile, and other natural ingredients. THC works well with those same natural sleep ingredients, helping to elevate one's mood and help them relax before bedtime.' 6 Seventy-three percent of Americans say that stress has an impact on their quality of life and an even larger number (77%) said it has an impact on their quality of sleep. 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