Nov. 9: 46 Montgomery County, Pa., businesses face preliminary hearings on felony THC sales charges

Forty-six businesses in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, are scheduled for preliminary hearings on Nov. 9, 2026, on felony charges that they sold illegal THC products after prosecutors warned them to stop. District Attorney Kevin R. Steele announced the cases Sept. 30, and they are moving through court weeks before most of the federal hemp THC ban takes effect on Dec. 11.

What prosecutors announced

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Steele said the 46 retailers, including smoke shops, gas stations and corner stores in towns such as Haverford, Pottstown and Narberth, ignored his office's warnings that some products on their shelves were illegal to sell in Pennsylvania outside a medical marijuana dispensary.

FOX 29, citing the district attorney's release, reported that county detectives made public purchases at stores in 26 townships and bought products "labeled as containing THC," including gummies, beverages and vape cartridges. "Some of these products indicate they contain over 1,000mg of THC in a single gummy," Steele said in a statement quoted by Glenside Local.

Each business is charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, which Glenside Local describes as an ungraded felony. The charges were filed against the businesses, not individual owners. The Inquirer reported that penalties can range from fines to revocation of business licenses, and that Steele said his office could file more serious charges, including racketeering, against individual owners if necessary. PhillyVoice reported that the charges alone do not force the businesses to close.

"Businesses do not get to ignore the laws of this Commonwealth merely because there is profit to be made," Steele said, according to FOX 29 and NBC10 Philadelphia. "Too many smoke shops and gas stations have become distributors of wholly unregulated, dangerous, and, in this case, illegal products."

NBC10 quoted the release as adding: "Until the legislature acts on this issue, law enforcement has an obligation to prosecute the general sale of THC."

Warnings first, then charges

The charges follow an October 2025 investigating grand jury report from Steele's office titled "Unregulated, Unsafe, and Illegal – The Reality of Smoke Shops in Pennsylvania." The Inquirer, whose own product testing the report cited, said the 107-page report came out of a joint investigation with prosecutors in Bucks and Chester counties. It found stores using "misleading packaging and fraudulent lab reports" and said nearly 300 stores selling hemp operate in Montgomery County, outnumbering schools.

After the report, the office sent notices to businesses telling them to remove unlawful THC products and warning that continued sales could lead to prosecution. The Inquirer and Lower Merion Times say the warning letters went out in December 2025. Follow-up checks in later months found 46 businesses still selling the products, the Inquirer reported.

"I think folks thought we were blowing smoke, for lack of a better way to say this, about the things that were coming if they didn't abide," Steele said at a Norristown news conference, as quoted by the Inquirer. "I had hoped when we did the grand jury report and put people on notice that would be enough," he said. "It was not."

Pennsylvania law and the hemp loophole

Pennsylvania allows medical marijuana but not adult-use sales. In July, the state enacted a budget without Gov. Josh Shapiro's proposal to legalize adult-use marijuana. PhillyVoice reported that, other than regulated products sold at medical marijuana dispensaries, the district attorney's position is that selling THC "in any form" is illegal in the county.

Many smoke shop products are marketed as legal hemp under the 2018 farm bill, which allowed hemp-derived products with no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight. The Inquirer reported that Steele said the products his office investigated were potent enough to be intoxicating, with some containing as much as 2,000 milligrams of THC in colorful packaging that seemed to target children. PhillyVoice reported that some products contained the form of THC found in marijuana, while others were packaged as hemp-derived or synthetic variants.

"There's a tremendous amount of misinformation about Pennsylvania law and about THC products," Steele said, according to PhillyVoice. He said some stores rely on manufacturers and distributors to tell them what is legal.

Steele also said the effort is not aimed at business. "We just want people to be compliant with the law," he said, as quoted by PhillyVoice.

What the complaint describes

The Lower Merion Times reported that the criminal complaint, filed by a county detective, describes three incidents involving minors: a 14-year-old who became sick after buying a THC-laced edible at a Lower Merion smoke shop on Christmas Eve 2024 without showing identification; a 21-month-old in Douglass Township who ate THC gummies found in a drawer in March 2025; and a 16-year-old in Lower Providence who was taken to a hospital in April 2025 after eating a gummy bought from a classmate. The newspaper said the Lower Merion shop was not named in court records. Hemp Law Watch has not reviewed the complaint.

At least one owner has responded publicly. The Lower Merion Times, citing 6abc, reported that the owner of one charged shop said she believed the products were legal, had recently bought the business and pulled the products after learning of the charges. No other defense responses were reported.

All charges are accusations. None of the businesses has been convicted.

What happens Nov. 9

FOX 29 reported that all 46 defendants are scheduled for preliminary hearings on Nov. 9 before Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Wendy G. Rothstein; the Lower Merion Times described the date as tentative. At a preliminary hearing, a judge decides whether prosecutors have enough evidence for a case to proceed to trial.

Prosecutors say they will ask for conditions requiring every business to remove illegal items from its shelves and to keep legal intoxicating products out of the reach of minors, according to NBC10 and FOX 29. PhillyVoice reported that businesses that keep selling could face upgraded charges.

The federal backdrop

The Montgomery County cases rely on Pennsylvania law, not the coming federal change. But the federal rules are about to tighten. Under the FY2026 agriculture appropriations law, as described by the Congressional Research Service, most final hemp-derived products with more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container fall outside the federal definition of hemp starting Dec. 11, 2026, and products with cannabinoids the plant can't make naturally lose hemp status Nov. 12.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday was among 35 attorneys general who wrote to Congress on Aug. 4 asking lawmakers not to delay or weaken that change.

This article reports on public documents and news coverage and is not legal advice.