A 69-year-old great-grandmother is demanding an apology for her arrest at a Walt Disney World security checkpoint last month after a guard found CBD oil while searching her purse.
Hester Burkhalter has hired high-profile attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented Trayvon Martin's family.
Crump said Tuesday that Disney World and the Orange County Sheriff's Office "need to take responsibility for their actions" or he will file a lawsuit on the North Carolina woman's behalf, alleging violations of her civil rights.
Burkhalter was arrested on April 15 and said she was detained for 15 hours over a bottle of CBD oil that her doctor in North Carolina recommended for arthritis. The oil was discovered when she put her purse on a table for inspection and tested positive for THC, according to an arrest report from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
"I was in shock," Burkhalter told NBC News of her experience. "I don't feel like I've done anything wrong at all."
CBD oil, which is extracted from cannabis plants but doesn't produce a high, has become a craze across the country since a 2018 federal law legalized industrial hemp.
NBC Miami has reported that the industry is expected to grow to $5.9 billion by the end of the year, up from $619 million in 2018, according to researchers with Brightfield Group, a CBD marketing research firm.
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But state laws vary with Florida in a special case of legal limbo. In the Sunshine State, CBD oil is, for now, only legal for sale with a prescription at certified Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers.
According to Burkhalter's legal team, she provided a doctor's note in response to her arrest and her doctor indicated the oil was legal in North Carolina.
Lawmakers in North Carolina, however, are in the process of trying to bring state laws in line with the 2018 federal law that removed hemp from a list of Schedule I drugs, said Jon Lanier, assistant general counsel with North Carolina's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
He said he thought law enforcement in his state was generally aware of changes with the federal law.
"Largely where we are right now is that the regulations are catching up to the production," Lanier said.
NBC has requested comment from Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for clarity on what out of state visitors who may have a doctor's note or prescription should know.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office has said in an emailed statement that Burkhalter's arrest was lawful. Still, prosecutors dropped a drug charge against Burkhalter, saying it wasn't suitable for prosecution.
A new law that passed Florida's legislature this month would legalize CBD oil on July 1 and establish a framework for regulating the products. Florida's new law, however, has not yet been signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. NBC has reached out for comment on whether and when DeSantis planned to sign the measure.
For now, Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services warns on its website that "CBD products being sold in Florida are unregulated, untested, and without standards on what consumers are putting into their bodies."
The NBC 6 Investigators team earlier this year purchased 35 CBD products from seven different companies and took the samples to an accredited testing facility. Twenty of the samples had less than half of the amount of CBD advertised on the label. Some samples had no CBD at all.
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson Franco Ripple said the department is not sending cease and desist letters to businesses that sell CBD products but should the state's regulatory program go into effect "it will allow us to test those products for consumer safety."
The FDA, meanwhile, is planning a public hearing on May 31 as it considers regulations for how cannabis-derived products.
--Daniel Macht contributed to this story
