9th District Candidate Rep. Morgan Griffith (R)
Campaign Website: https://www.morgangriffithforcongress.com/
Candidate Questionnaire from Radio IQ:
This candidate did not respond to our full questionnaire. However, we were able to ask this question in-person at an event in Blacksburg on August 28th:
Q: What is one topic you think the current Congress has failed to address, and why?
I think, and I know my colleagues who are on the other side of this on the Republican side of the aisle mean well and I think that they’re right intellectually and that’s THC regulation by the Federal Government. Because right now, we have all these products coming in, and every state has a different policy, and the THC levels range, in some states to 2.5 milligrams per serving all the way up to no limits. So you have, I’m told, a THC-laced beverage in Louisiana that has 100 milligrams. I don’t know how you operate, I mean, I’ve never used those substances but they should be for adults, they should be labeled as adult products, they shouldn’t be packaged in brightly colored gummy packages. They even have, I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve been told they have a sandwich cookie that looks like an Oreo, and of course the companies that are importing these things are usually from overseas, and sometimes American companies, but they’re packaging it to look as much like an Oreo as they can, and the thing’s laced with THC.
Furthermore, because we don’t have testing and we don’t have third-party testing, and my bill— I have a bill— my bill has requirements for third-party testing, so that if you’re putting a product out there you say it has— and I picked five. It was a guess. Most states are between 2.5 and 10. I picked the middle. If somebody comes along and says three is the right number or 2.5 is the right number, fine. But I think we need to act on it, which is why I support the CR that gives an extra month, that the Senate sent back that gets an extra month before they put a ban in place. Some of my friends don’t like that, they want to say, “end it forever,” and intellectually they may be right. The problem is the horse is out of the barn. And my bill would corral the horse so it didn’t run wild. Right now, it’s running wild. And I’d rather corral the horse; I don’t think we can get it back in the barn. I don’t care what we do in Congress, I don’t think that one’s coming back. So let’s figure out how to do it responsibly and make it as safe as we can.
I will tell you I don’t really believe that THC is all that safe personally, based on some data I’ve seen about how… it’s always hard to figure out. Does it trigger mental instability in some people, or does the mental instability trigger the usage? We don’t have any really good studies on that, but we do see people who are heavy users of THC often have other mental health issues. Which comes first… I’m not trying to say I know, but we ought to at least have a product, when you go in and buy it, you actually have some assurance you know what you’re getting. Right now, they found some products that actually have things other than THC that are illegal substances in these products that are being sold not at your major convenience stores, but at the Mom and Pops on the side of the highways. And in fairness to them, there’s no prohibition, there’s no guidance, there’s nothing. And somebody comes in, some salesman, maybe even contacts them by internet and says, “Here’s a product you can make a big profit on.” They don’t know any better, either.
So let’s get some guidelines, and if you want to use those products, let’s make it clear it’s an adult product, let’s make it clear what’s in the product, and that there’s a limit, whatever the number ends up being. I’m not wed to five, I just picked it because I had to pick a number to put the bill in. I think it’s a good number, but I mean it was an educated guess, but it was a guess as to what the right number ought to be. And like I said, if we could get a bill passed and we had to go to ten, I’d say yes. If we could get a bill passed and we had to go to three, I’d say yes, because I just think we’re derelict in our duty in not putting some proper regulations and proper testing on products being sold in the American market that I think have significant health issues down the road, maybe even immediately.
And we know that there are children getting hold of this, and the reason we know this is because it gets Court attention. Because currently— and it’s a good law, might have even voted for it way back when, who knows? If a child comes into a hospital or a medical facility and they’re having problems, no matter what it’s caused by, if a child comes into a medical facility, they’re comatose, they’re semi-comatose, the medical people have to report that to the department of social services as a potential child abuse and neglect case, and that goes to court, and that’s how I can tell you with certainty we’re seeing children. Because the parents are being brought into court for abuse and neglect. The parents don’t know better either. There’s nothing on the packaging that indicates this is a dangerous substance, that you shouldn’t necessarily be leaving it out. And then the kid gets a hold of it and they’re starting to eat the gummies and the next thing you know, they’re in some kind of situation that causes them to have to go to the hospital and the parents end up in court. I get wound up about it, but I think it’s a rational solution.
And I have a whole other lecture about respect for the law, which I’ll give you the short version of. Whenever you have laws that nobody respects, it creates a diminution in respect for the remainder of the laws. And I think when it comes to our THC policy in this country, there’s a huge disrespect for the laws for the fact that we have a wild west out there and that creates an undermining of other statutes that people then say, “Well, they don’t know what they’re talking about, I’m going to go do something else that’s not legal.” That’s the short version of that lecture.
(Transcribed from interview recorded on Aug 28, 2026)