Michael Gillespie recalled how frantic he was looking for his 14-year-old son, who had gotten lost in the woods after buying an intoxicating hemp product from a convenience store.
“It was 21 degrees and it took us 11 and a half hours to find him,” said Gillespie, of Washington Township, his hands shaking and his feet tapping into the Statehouse carpet after a state Senate vote at the end of June. “When we found him, he was blue.”
Gillespie’s story, along with the work of a coalition of parents, mayors, law enforcement and cannabis businesses, prompted both houses of the state Legislature to pass a bill (S3235) designed to take intoxicating hemp products off the shelves of convenience stores and gas stations in New Jersey that gained a reputation for selling to minors.