Nebraska Attorney General tells Omaha Delta-8 retailers to pull products or face lawsuit

The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office is ramping up its campaign against Delta-8 and other synthetic cannabis products with a series of cease-and-desist letters sent to vape shops, dispensaries and gas stations in the Omaha metro area.

The letters, sent to 104 stores, tell business owners to accept a settlement agreement, which includes agreeing to pull all hemp-derived cannabis products off store shelves, or face a consumer protection lawsuit. The attorney general’s office has filed 15 lawsuits since 2023 targeting retailers across the state. Twelve of those retailers accepted settlement agreements.

“Today, we have taken legal action against every single store in the Omaha Metro area,” Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said at a Thursday press conference. “The stores have 30 days to comply with our terms and take these products off their shelves, like other stores have, or we will sue.”

Nebraska, like other states, has struggled to regulate the evolving industry of hemp-derived cannabinoids like Delta-8 THC, Delta-10 THC and THC-A, which are naturally present in hemp plants in very small quantities. Using chemical processes, the cannabinoids can be extracted from the hemp plant and can produce psychoactive qualities similar to Delta-9 THC, the main cannabinoid in marijuana.

Hilgers calls the resulting products “synthetic cannabinoids” and says the Nebraska Legislature never intended to – and didn’t – legalize them with the passage of the 2018 federal farm bill and subsequent state legislation in 2019. The bill made the sale of hemp legal so long as the concentration of Delta-9 THC is less than 0.3% by dry weight.

Since the laws were passed, Hilgers said, hemp-derived THC products began popping up across the state. They are sold in dedicated “dispensaries” and in smoke shops, gas stations, liquor stores and the like.

Hilgers offered an ultimatum for businesses selling these products: Pull the products from shelves voluntarily or face a lawsuit with the state pursuing “maximum penalties.”

“We’re gonna go after every single store selling these products in the state of Nebraska,” Hilgers said. “As we go over the coming weeks and months, our efforts are only going to accelerate and escalate until we have the entire industry covered.”

A bill introduced in the legislature last session sought to entirely ban the sale of Delta-8 and other hemp-derived cannabinoids, but the proposal never made it out of the Judiciary Committee. This session, there are two legislative proposals seeking to regulate the industry.

Hilgers is in favor of Legislative Bill 316, introduced by State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, which would effectively ban hemp-derived cannabinoids with the exception of cannabidiol, or CBD. If that bill passes, Hilgers said, his office will rethink its current enforcement strategy.