Alva Review-Courier -

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — The owner of a Missouri hemp oil supplier said he's making a special product line for Kansas after police seized the supply of a retailer because it contained trace amounts of the high-inducing agent in marijuana.

CBD American Shaman owner Vince Sanders said he hopes the move will appease law enforcement. Sanders said he tests his products to make sure they contain no more than 0.3 percent THC, which is a fraction of the amount contained in recreational marijuana, The Kansas City Star reported (http://bit.ly/2r9mHIu ).

Sanders' herbal supplements are marketed and sold nationwide based on another chemical found in both marijuana and hemp: cannabidiol, or CBD. Powders, oils and lotions made from CBD don't produce a high, but are promoted as providing health benefits.

Sanders believes the low-THC formulation makes his products legal. But police in Mission, Kansas, disagreed. They cited Kansas' "zero tolerance" anti-marijuana laws in seizing his product last month from an alternative medicine store called Into the Mystic.

Several CBD oil shops have popped up on both sides of the state line in the Kansas City metro area in recent years, despite questions about their legality. Former Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sued some sellers last year. Missouri allows CBD oil only for treating epilepsy and manufacturers and sellers have to be licensed with the state.

Ryan Vandrey, a psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the effects of cannabis, said it's hard to pin down how much low-THC hemp oil one would have to consume to have a psychoactive effect. But he said it's a lot, and most law enforcement agencies haven't done much to crack down on it, in part because "the hemp law is a little bit confusing."

Sanders said Kansas officials have said it's OK to sell CBD oils if they have no THC, so he's working on making a separate set of products, on separate equipment, to ensure there's no trace of it.

"We've literally gone through every piece of equipment and cleaned it with ethanol," Sanders said.

He said he has submitted samples of the new products to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and has offered to give them to any Kansas retailers that want to trade back their stock of low-THC products.

"It would honestly maybe make more sense just to not ship to Kansas," Sanders said. "It's a small state."

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com