We can put marijuana in our ice cream and our ice cream in booze, but when it comes to marijuana in our booze, Oregonians are out of luck.
That’s because earlier this month the The Oregon Liquor Control Commission clarified the rules on cannabis-infused alcohol, writing on their website, “Adding marijuana or marijuana items to alcoholic beverages adulterates the product. Therefore, unless allowed under the following exception, marijuana-infused alcoholic beverages are prohibited in Oregon.”
“It wasn’t some new ruling from us,” Mark Pettinger, spokesperson for the OLCC said over the phone Friday. “We’re reflecting what the federal law requires.”
Pettinger said the OLCC has received questions about cannabis and alcohol, so they decided to issue the new guidance.
Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level. Specifically, THC and CBD, two of the active cannabinoids in cannabis, are banned by the federal government. Since the feds regulate alcohol, neither THC or CBD can be legally combined with any alcoholic beverage, according to Pettinger.
“We’re just trying to let our two constituent sides, the cannabis side and the alcohol side, know what the rules are,” he said.
As of now, the only alcohol being produced on a wider scale in Oregon that might be impacted by the clarified rules is the Two Flowers IPA from Coalition Brewing, which is a beer brewed with CBD and hemp.
Before the federal government made CDB a Schedule 1 drug in January, Coalition’s beer, which is made using CBD oil from industrial hemp, would have been okay under Oregon rules because it fell under the “Industrial Hemp Exception.”
Industrial hemp “may be added to alcoholic beverages” as long as certain conditions are met, according to the OLCC.
But one of those conditions is that the “finished product cannot contain a controlled substance,” which might pose a problem for Coalition now that CBD is Schedule 1.
CBD is the non-psychoactive cannabinoid sometimes hailed as a cure for epilepsy and nausea.
According to Pettinger, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade is responsible for approving formulas that fall under that exception.
“Our understanding is TTB follows the DEA’s lead,” Pettinger said in a follow-up email, “and DEA doesn’t make a distinction between marijuana CBD and hemp CBD.”
— Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
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