The Missouri medical cannabis company that had nearly 63,000 products recalled last month lost its bid to stop the recall after a Cole County Circuit judge on Thursday dismissed the case, KMIZ reports. The judge ruled that Delta Extraction, LLC did not exhaust administrative remedies and that the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the complaint.
The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) had issued the recall because the products were not tracked by the state’s seed-to-sale-tracking system, METRC, and that the agency could not “verify that the products came from marijuana grown in Missouri or that the product passed required testing prior to being sold at dispensaries.” DCR added that “no adverse reactions for this product have been reported.”
During an administrative hearing on the recall last month, Jack Maritz, a manager for Delta Extractions, testified that during the distillation process, hemp-derived THCa may be used from out-of-state sources. Delta argued that previous regulations allowed the out-of-state hemp product to be used, while the state countered that using out-of-state products is not allowed and that more recent regulations clarified that.
Delta is also being sued by medical cannabis company Dark Horse Medicinals Missouri, LLC, which purchased $325,632 worth of the now-recalled products from Delta Extractions. In the lawsuit, Dark Horse said it was unaware that the distillate was “unusable” in Missouri and that Delta “knowingly and intentionally withheld from Dark Horse the fact that the distillate was unlawfully sourced or derived.” (Full Story)