Four hemp companies sued Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday, claiming a part of a new law passed in the 2025 session regulating and restricting certain hemp products is unconstitutional.
Ivey signed the hemp bill into law on May 14. Mellow Fellow Fun, Tasty Haze, The Humble Hemp Shack, and Seedless Green filed the lawsuit in Montgomery County Circuit Court. The plaintiffs are requesting a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the state of Alabama.
Mellow Fellow Fun is a Delaware company that transports and ships hemp products throughout the United States. The Humble Hemp Shack is an Alabama retailer. Tasty Haze is an Alabama company that processes, wholesales, and distributes hemp products. Seedless Green is an Alabama retailer, grower, and processor.
Brandon Essig, an attorney representing the hemp companies, argues in the lawsuit the new law criminalizing the possession of federally legal “smokable hemp products” and “synthetic hemp products” and allowing state law enforcement to seize such products violates the 2018 Farm Bill, the Commerce Clause, and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“In its efforts to protect its citizens, the Alabama Legislature crafted unconstitutional “exclusions” from the “consumable hemp products” definition that purport to ban the sale and possession of “smokeable hemp products” and certain “synthetic hemp products.” The Exclusion Provisions suffer from fatal preemption and Commerce Clause issues, as they effectively prohibit manufacturers, sellers, and other industry members, including Plaintiffs, from transporting or shipping federally protected hemp products through Alabama,” Essig said in the lawsuit. “Worse still, the Exclusion Provisions are unconstitutionally vague, because they are so opaque that Plaintiffs and other industry members in Alabama cannot hope to follow them, and law enforcement cannot effectively administer them. Notwithstanding these constitutional issues, the Attorney General’s Office has publicly confirmed that, beginning July 1, 2025, the Exclusion Provisions will be enforced, meaning individuals found in possession of prohibited hemp products–whatever they are–may face prosecution for a Class C felony. As a result of HB 445, Plaintiffs are in jeopardy of criminal prosecution for possessing, transporting, or shipping federally protected hemp products in, through and out of, Alabama. Plaintiffs are also left with no clear guidance on what hemp products are banned by the statute.”
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