Michael Soloman, one of Tennessee’s leading sellers of legal cannabis, believes the state is engaging in regulatory bait and switch.

On the one hand, a new law went into effect last year, regulating the sale of hemp-derived products to those 21 and older, seemingly cementing into place what had already become a growing, Tennessee-based industry of legalized non-marijuana cannabis. After all, such products have been legal nationally since 2018.

On the other, the state’s Department of Agriculture, which is drafting specific rules for the new law, is considering restrictions on a chemical in certain hemp products, THC-A (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid). THC-A is legal but mimics the effects of a traditional marijuana “high” when it’s burned or turned into certain edible products.

THC-A products are, by far, the most popular products being sold now in Tennessee, Soloman said, and people want them for a variety of reasons. And, a state ban on sales, he added, wouldn’t prohibit a Tennessean from buying these products online.

But it could impact Nashville business owners.

“It’s really just killing the local industry,” said Soloman, the owner of a chain of legal cannabis shops in Tennessee known as The Holistic Connection. He also owns Buds and Brews, a cannabis-themed restaurant in Nashville, and Tri-Star Medical & Craft Cannabis.