North Carolina officials have agreed to ban smokable hemp production starting next summer.
House and Senate negotiators finished work late Monday on a bill that includes the ban.
Smokable hemp has proved a popular consumer good in the tobacco-growing state.
But North Carolina law enforcement has complained that smokable hemp flower is too difficult to distinguish from illegal marijuana, prompting lawmakers to ban its production.
Under the proposed law, smokable hemp is defined as “harvested raw or dried hemp plant material, including 19 hemp buds or hemp flowers, hemp cigars and hemp cigarettes.”
The bill goes on to allow the production of hemp products such as CBD but adds, “‘Hemp product’ does not include smokable hemp.”
As part of the proposal, North Carolina’s top law-enforcement agency and agriculture regulators are being called upon to “study whether the prohibition on the sale of smokable hemp should be repealed,” but the bill sets no timetable for the study.
The measure would also require annual inspection of hemp producers, who must provide a “random sample of hemp producers to verify that hemp is not produced in violation” of the law.
Idiotic stupid backwards It’s 10 steps back with the pill meth and heron problems North Carolina has does the state really want to worry about hemp !!?? North Carolina wake up !! Craven Jones Pitt IOnslow Beaufort cárteret got bigger fish to fry!Stop wasting tax payer money and follow federal law!!
Well said brother
I love North Carolina but we all need to make sure these dip sht law makers get voted out.
Yes I agree 100% hemp flower has helped so many people in North Carolina with pain.
If they want to stop people from dieing on the streets get the heroin and Other Drugs off of the streets. If there is anything that STATES NEED TO STOP SALEING IS AlCOHOL IT KILLS MANY MANY PEOPLE EVERY YEAR. BUT IT PUTS SO MUCH MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS
HEMP FLOWER HAS HELPED SO MANY PEOPLE THAT IS IN PAIN AND IS SICK HEMP IS NOT KILLING PEOPLE ON THE STREETS. ALCOHOL AND HEROINE AND PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE KILLING PEOPLE EVERY DAY! LETS TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT IT!
Well, if the state cant make a bunch of money on it, they want it stopped
Am I to believe that there is a difference between a female hemp plant and marijuana I challenge you to show me a marijuana seed we have always smoked the female bud of a hemp plant marijuana is a Mexican word that was brought to the United States in 1910 and 1912 so please tell me where I can buy marijuana seeds I say you can’t
Court’s, lawyers, law enforcement, and the ATF agency all have an interest in keeping hemp illegal $$$. Competition with the sales of alcohol and big tobacco that’s a big no no around here in North Carolina. Federal doctrine states that any federal law, even if it is only a regulation from a federal agency, supersedes any conflicting state law, even if that law is part of the state’s constitution. Wake up that means Federal law surpasses State law.
Dear North Carolina, Please get with the program and stop backtracking. You’re making us all look bad.
Well said brother
I don’t believe smokeable hemp is the issue here. It’s brought great Revenue to the state of North Carolina! We should be more worried about the opioid crisis along with the alcohol abuse! Hopefully Governor Cooper sees through this and understand that this great state shouldn’t be going backwards we should be moving forwards. There is field testing that can be used to decipher hemp from marijuana. It’s understandable that the police want it ban but I believe they just need to be vigilant ! I don’t want to say anything bad about our state but I’ve stated before and all of my interviews that just because a few people and I mean just a handful has made the police in lawmakers to put this in place. But that goes to show you that they’re not worried about the opioid crisis that we’re having here. Those two kids we’re in the middle of the road slumped over and it was all over the news but you didn’t see anything happened to them meanwhile they were using some sort of opiate that brought them to that state of nodding out. But here they’re attacking something that is medically helping people with anxiety PTSD fibromyalgia chronic pain and the list goes on. We could only hope that our governor we’ll see the silver lining.
I think most people agree with you 110%!!! & to think …I was actually dumb enough to think NC might legalize marijuana and then I see this and know we are headed BACKWARDS!!!!! READ THAT AGAIN…..BACKWARDS!!!!!!
Yes I agree 100% hemp flower has helped so many people in North Carolina with pain.
Can’t distinguish between the two? Yep, it’s always best to take away people’s rights Rather than find a way to fix the problem! Government has GOTTEN WAY OUT OF CONTROL! We need to put them BACK IN CHECK!
Law enforcement clearly need more training if they’re having this hard of a time distinguishing the difference. I can tell you right now that there’s a huge difference in smell! Maybe I should be in law enforcement so I educate the ones having a hard time! This comes as a complete shock to me. It is ridiculous to ban smokable hemp. Please listen to the people in your state and stop this ban!
This ban is going to effect NC in a very negative way. We will be the laughing stock of the entire US. I wouldn’t even be surprised if we were the subject of an SNL skit about how uneducated the law enforcement are! This ban is a disgrace!!!! Way to be progressive I tell ya! ? Freaking pitiful!!!!
Seems that the devil is at work making sure people suffer and suffer good! Focus on opiate law and putting real criminals behind bars such as the big pharma! The devil’s get em of me!!!
They need to let drugs to the trained professionals the DEA and worry about the rapist thieves and con artists and murderers.
Any one can go to another state, buy Cannabis and ship it home, I know a lot of people who do this,
North Carolina does not have it, go to another state and get it, HA HA North Carolina we are smarter than you.
Florida is voting for legalization now, I lived in Florida 35 years, and I know just where to go.
300 thousand people have Medical Marijuana cards in Florida ( North Carolina has O)
I oniy said this one time.
Go to another state and get it, and ship it home to N.C.
a lot of people do this.
We want pain relief. ( And we don’t want Opioids)
i know a Policeman in my area that talk’s about Marijuana, they don’t give a rat’s blank about
Hemp, or Marijuana, some one might being paid in N.C. to keep it away.
Have someone in another state send it to you.
Barbara- The problem is there is an industry that has developed in NC, and many jobs would be lost. ITs a form of tax revenue also. We should urge Governor Cooper to veto this asap and urge reps & senators to introduce a bill enshrining the right to grow hemp in NC. Tell politicians it will cost you your seat and then they might listen!
We’re in one of the most technologically advanced nations on earth, there has to be some testing device or method to test plant material on the street for law enforcement to be able to get THC content of a hemp smokable product.
And if they don’t have a portable one to carry in their police vehicles, then they should take the sample to a lab that can get the THC content.
WHY BAN AN ENTIRE PRODUCT?
We are supposed to be PROGRESSIVE not REGRESSIVE.
Banning smokable hemp flower is going to give foreign competitors a huge edge over American manufacturers who will be prohibited from competing with them.
Seems to me that law enforcement wants less work, so it’s easier for them to just outright ban it. They’re basically taking the easiest road and throwing out the baby with the bath water.
This insanity cannot, must not go on. Banning a product that allows people CONSIDERABLE health benefits, and causes no sort of high at all simply because it “looks a little” like the illicit, yet time honored, natural, medicinal substance that has benefited adults for centuries – is the epitome of ABSURD!
So, because a kid might be tempted to be a kid (God may the “…but the children” choir chime in on actual unpopular legislation for a change) and use this with no caution, adults who benefit from it should be forced at pain of imprisonment, financial liability and social stigma to pay dearly for seeking relief and help.
I was always taught it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. It’s gonna take a lot more than a candle to illuminate the volume of ppl who’s lives have been destroyed for want of obtaining relief with this mostly harmless plant (in it’s currently illicit or legal form). [Note that a whole battery of klieg lights, metal halides and high pressure sodium lights might be a good start though ;)]
But god hell North Carolina, we may just as well curse the dark if the best we can summon up to address injustice is fearfully draw our swords on plants, or smite the earnest efforts of growers and sellers of nature. Or allow some otherwise tepid judge rule on the destroying of a good persons life and reputation with a gavel and the stroke of a pen.
As long as there’s a breath left in me I will shout down every shrill Draconian effort of mankind’s corruption. Yet another war against the poor (in spirit or wallet) seeking relief from the daily exigencies of living under the thumb of a cruel nanny-state. PERIOD!
This has nothing to do with hemp. This has nothing to do with law enforcement. This has everything to do with RJ Reynolds.
You want legal MJ? Get RJR’s lobbiests out of the picture.
There is a product that can field test for THC and the price is under $300/unit. It is called “tCheck” and it is easy to operate. Therefore law enforcement could be easily trained on how to perform a field test to verify the delta 9 THC percentage.
They can figure it out they just don’t want to, where there is a will there is a way. The forces at work here don’t want smokable hemp for whatever reason. The law enforcement argument is the one being used here. This will have a huge impact on the hemp industry in our state.
North Carolina is ass backwards! Get with it, hemp and marijuana can save lives as opposed to all the pills going around. We have to fight this, it’s ridiculous.
Cant tell the difference between hemp and marijuana? Get with the 21st century and Legalize all forms of the plant asap! NC, become a leader instead of sticking with the retrogressive Southern neighbors and Legalize It already.
Hemp flowers helps my pain and anxiety daily and I am not sticking a needle in my arm,or can’t take care of my children, or nodding out unlike the pain pills I was prescribed that cost me my children, I became hep c positive, and the pills control my every thought and move not to mention wanting to kill myself to not have to go through the withdrawal. Hemp flowers has never and will never come close to any of these. North Carolina don’t take away what works where were these law makers during my prescribed opioid hell
Federal doctrine states that any federal law, even if it is only a regulation from a federal agency, supersedes any conflicting state law, even if that law is part of the state’s constitution. Wake up that means Federal law surpasses State law.
Court’s, lawyers, law enforcement, and the ATF agency all have an interest in keeping hemp illegal $$$. Competitive sales with alcohol and big tobacco that’s a big no no around here in North Carolina.