Hundreds of protesters packed into the state legislature Tuesday morning, ahead of planned votes later in the day when a Republican-backed compromise to ban intoxicating hemp products — such as gummies, drinks and vape products sold in convenience stores and smoke shops — could be up for final approval.
The measure, which has divided the hemp industry and law enforcement agencies, passed the Senate last month. But House Speaker Destin Hall declined to bring it up for a vote before lawmakers left Raleigh for their monthlong break.
Now that they’ve returned to session, a handful of Republican lawmakers gathered Tuesday with several dozen sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials to support the bill. In addition to banning most hemp products, it would also put stricter age limits on anything that is still able to be sold.
They displayed some products packaged to look like candy. “It’s clear what the intent is: They’re targeting children,” Randolph County District Attorney Andy Gregson said Tuesday.
Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said he understood the protesters’ concerns that the ban could shut down businesses across the state that sell hemp products. He said that’s alright by him.
“Some will say this bill will put out stores out of business,” Hughes said. “I say, if a business depends primarily on selling these dangerous products to our children, then that will indeed be the result.”
People who support keeping hemp legal rallied Monday night, ahead of Tuesday’s legislative action and protest, WRAL reported.
Some business owners said the line about protecting children is just a red herring because they support age limits, too. They said the bill should’ve included only the age limits, and not the near-total ban, in order to protect children while still allowing adults to purchase and use the products.
“The entire industry is 100% on the same page about age restrictions,” Adrian Larrea, co-founder of Haze Beverages in Raleigh which makes THC-infused drinks, said in an interview. “We want to protect children, too.”
Josh Lardie, a lobbyist for hemp dispensary chain Apotheca, said hemp is a multi-billion-dollar industry in North Carolina that employs thousands of people and shouldn’t be banned. He said the hundreds of protesters packing the legislature Wednesday represent just a fraction of people who oppose the legislation.
“There are potentially millions of North Carolinians, who cannot be here on a Tuesday afternoon, who are constituents, who use these products on a daily basis,” he said in an interview.
Bipartisan opposition
In the middle is Democratic Gov. Josh Stein. He supports some of the bill’s provisions, such as age limits to stop minors from buying THC products. But he opposes the near-total ban on those products, and also questioned why lawmakers aren’t doing more to crack down on a different substance, kratom, which could fill in the gap in the market if hemp is banned. If the House approves the measure, it would be up to Stein to decide whether to approve or veto the measure.
“Kratom is this drug that people can buy in gas stations, and it’s an opioid-like drug,” Stein told reporters Tuesday at a monthly meeting of the state’s top executive branch leaders. “It does similar things to a person. If you take a lot of it, it will act as an opioid. So it is commonly called, on the street, gas station heroin.”
It remains unclear which side will prevail. While multiple Republican lawmakers called for the ban during Tuesday’s press conference, no members of House leadership were in attendance, and as of Tuesday afternoon the bill had yet to be scheduled for a vote.
And not all GOP lawmakers agree with how the bill has evolved in recent weeks. Rep. Tricia Cotham, R-Mecklenburg, told WRAL on Tuesday she initially supported a plan to ban kratom but not hemp. Now the legislature could do the opposite.
She urged fellow lawmakers to simply pause and re-think what a near-total ban on hemp would do to the state economy — since it supports so many jobs from farming to manufacturing and retail — not to mention people who use the products.
“This is one of the biggest issues where I’ve had real constituents, all over the weekend, from my district, reach out to me,” Cotham said in an interview. “It has been overwhelming. So this hits the people that I came here to represent. And plus, there are too many unknowns with this bill. There’s debate over ounces and packaging, and the federal government just recently said, ‘Let’s put a pause on this.’ Why should North Carolina take the lead, especially if we get it wrong?”
Details of the bill
House Bill 328 largely mirrors proposed federal restrictions. It would prohibit hemp products containing more than 0.3% THC by dry weight or more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per serving and limit sales to people 21 and older.
Some of the products lawmakers displayed Tuesday — which they said they bought a short walk down the road — advertised containing 1,000 or more milligrams of THC.
“The clerk that was working said, ‘Be real careful if you take these,'” said Rep. Reece Pyrtle, R-Rockingham, a former police chief who supports the ban and purchased the products for display Tuesday.
“I’m thankful that we were able to get it off the shelves today — even this little bit — so that a 12-year-old can’t walk in here and do the same,” he added.
THC gummies Rep. Reece Pyrtle, R-Rockingham, brought to a press conference where he proposed banning them.
THC is the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Hemp and marijuana contain THC, but hemp is legal in the state because it contains THC at far lower levels than marijuana — enough to impart some side-effects that users seek out, but generally not enough to get people high. Some growers and manufacturers have figured out how to extract THC from hemp plants and introduce products into the marketplace touting the legal substance they do contain — cannabidiol, or CBD — but may possess enough THC to get someone high.
Federal restrictions expected to take effect later this year could eliminate many intoxicating hemp-derived THC products. Hoping to avoid that outcome, North Carolina businesses have pushed lawmakers to adopt regulations — including age restrictions, product testing and licensing requirements — without broadly banning products already on the market.
Hemp was federally legalized in 2018. North Carolina also legalized it shortly after. Now, several North Carolina law enforcement officials argue state law has failed to keep pace with increasingly potent hemp-derived products.
On Tuesday Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, said that when the state legislature legalized hemp nearly a decade ago it was due to the influence of “several misguided Republicans in the House. Misguided. Good people, but deceived.”
Congress, meanwhile, is considering a ban on many intoxicating hemp products that could take effect later this year, though many state lawmakers say North Carolina shouldn’t rely on federal action alone.
The state House’s decision to delay a vote exposed an unusual split between Republican leaders after negotiators from both chambers had already agreed on a final version of the bill.
Currently, the state has no age restrictions for purchasing intoxicating hemp-based products.
The Senate and House say North Carolina’s current laws leave children vulnerable and limit the ability to punish retailers who might sell products to kids. Stein has also called on lawmakers to more strictly regulate the industry, backing age limits as the bill proposes. Stein has also called for broader legalization of cannabis products, including marijuana.
Three of the groups that support the ban on most hemp products — the Alcohol Law Enforcement, the State Bureau of Investigation and the state Highway Patrol — report to Stein. The others are independent agencies or private groups representing local-level police, sheriffs and prosecutors.
“Failing to adopt this conference report means that anyone, no matter their age, will continue to be able to buy intoxicating THC products from any retailer that wishes to sell them without legal consequence in North Carolina,” the groups said in a recent letter to House lawmakers.
Business owners say the legislation reaches far beyond intoxicating products and would disrupt a growing industry that has become an important revenue source for small businesses across the state.
Several breweries have introduced hemp-derived THC beverages as beer sales have declined, while restaurants and retailers increasingly market hemp beverages as an alternative to alcohol.