Latest / NRBC Compliance Brief / Vol. 1, Ed. 68 — Tue Oct 20: Supreme Court to review federal home-distilling ban
Transcript
- This is the New Realm Compliance Brief, Volume One, Edition Sixty-Eight, for Tuesday, October Twentieth. Our top story: the United States Supreme Court agreed Monday to review the eighteen sixty-eight federal law that makes distilling spirits at home a crime. The Fifth Circuit held that the ban exceeds Congress's powers, while the Sixth Circuit rejected a similar Ohio challenge days earlier. The Justice Department asked the Court to take the Texas case, brought by the Hobby Distillers Association. The outcome will test how far Congress's taxing power reaches in regulating alcohol production — the constitutional footing beneath the federal excise system. Also in federal news: the advocacy group NORML asked the full Sixth Circuit to reconsider a panel ruling that federal courts cannot enforce cannabis supply contracts. If that ruling stands, contracts with cannabis-licensed partners in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee may not be enforceable in federal court. And beverage maker Herb Light launched a campaign letting customers send six-packs of its THC drinks to members of Congress, urging a regulatory alternative to the coming federal limits. Around the states: Illinois proposed rules for at least forty-five new infuser licenses — the manufacturing tier that covers infused beverages — starting January first, with a twenty-five-hundred-dollar application fee, an extra lottery entry for qualifying hemp businesses, and waived renewal fees for the first two years. New Jersey's Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced a bill making unlicensed cannabis and vapor sales a third-degree crime, with fines up to a quarter of a million dollars for business entities. And Colorado's state auditor reported gaps in marijuana product-safety testing and inspections. On the radar: tomorrow, October twenty-first, is the D E A's deadline to respond in the stayed marijuana rescheduling case, and Oregon's liquor and cannabis commission holds a hearing on hemp registry application rules. The federal hemp limits still take effect November twelfth and December eleventh. Full details and source links are in today's email. This update is for general information only — it is not legal advice.