Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison signed a letter along with 38 other state and territory attorneys general calling on Congress to ban intoxicating hemp products. Ellison later asserted in a social media post that he did not intend to shut down Minnesota’s state-regulated hemp industry. Yesterday the Star Tribune reported that Maine Senator Susan Collins referred to the letter from the attorneys general when speaking to reporters in Washington on Monday, saying there is “strong support” for the proposed hemp restrictions. A spokesman for Ellison did not respond to the Star Tribune’s request for comment.
The Minnesota Reformer is a left-wing news site edited by former Star Tribune reporter Patrick Coolican. In yesterday’s email newsletter deputy editor Max Nesterak flagged the Reformer’s story on the bill that has now funded the government and “shut down” the hemp business if the hemp provision actually goes into effect next year.
Nesterak noted that Ellison “was seemingly unaware [such a law] would kill the industry. He wrote on Substack that he doesn’t want to ‘restrict the sale of products that follow [Minnesota] law in any way.’ Industry experts told [the Reformer’s] Alyssa [Chen], however, the federal ban will do just that.”
That was in fact the lament of just about everyone quoted in the Star Tribune story that I wrote about here yesterday. Ellison appears to be high on his own supply.
