Why NC lawmakers say there’s still hope for bills to ban hemp sales to minors
Lawmakers in North Carolina haven’t fully decided how to regulate hemp — including when it comes to keeping it out of the hands of minors.
This session, Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have together filed more than a dozen bills dealing with either marijuana or hemp. Both come from the cannabis plant, but while hemp is legal in the state, marijuana is not.
Marijuana-related bills this year so far have all come from Democrats. Bills dealing with hemp and other cannabis derivatives, however, have come from both parties, with GOP-led proposals to prohibit the sale of hemp products to anyone under 21. That includes oils, gummies and other products, often packaged in vibrant designs that might attract children.
Marijuana’s key psychoactive component, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), delivers what’s typically associated with the drug’s “high.” Hemp is defined as cannabis with less than 0.3% delta-9 THC, and there are no age limits under state or federal law on buying or using hemp products. Other compounds in cannabis — often found in hemp — can also cause a high, including delta-8 THC.
Senate Republicans filed one proposal, Senate Bill 265, while House Republicans introduced two others. House Bill 607 has largely the same language as the Senate bill, while House Bill 680 omits provisions to limit packaging appealing to minors, product testing requirements, and manufacturer or distributor licensing. It also sets lower fines. All three require sellers to be licensed.
But all share the same goal: keeping hemp and its derived products away from minors and tightening industry rules. Republicans control both chambers and largely decide which bills move forward.
None of the three bills has received a committee hearing. All missed the Thursday crossover deadline, when most bills must pass one chamber to stay alive.
But they’re not dead.
Bill sponsor is hopeful
Even if bills don’t advance ahead of the deadline, lawmakers in the majority often find ways to advance their priorities, like amending another bill to add the legislation.
These hemp bills have fees in them, which meant they weren’t subject to the deadline, said Rep. Timothy Reeder, a Republican and emergency physician from Ayden who is a primary sponsor of House Bill 680.
“I’m hopeful, and I’ve talked to a lot of the other bill sponsors — I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to come together to consolidate a lot of the bills into something that will get a committee hearing and move through the process,” Reeder said.
This week saw a flurry of votes on bills on various topics. “A lot of things were just trying to get through. And I think this is a complicated one with a lot of different moving parts, and we just didn’t have enough time to get everybody together to come up with what we thought would be a good policy that we could advance through the legislature,” he said.
He said lawmakers have differences on the regulatory framework but general agreement that limiting access for those under 21 is important. While he wouldn’t name specific regulations causing sticking points, Reeder said it came down to “the balance of government, bureaucracy, enforcement authority, and managing the issue.”
Reeder said the House is currently focused on the budget, and once that’s done, there should be more time to deal with hemp. He added that he was hopeful that conversations could begin in the next week or two.
“There are kids who are being injured by these products — not just kids, but adults as well. And so protecting children under 21 is very important to me,” he said.
It’s not the first year that bills to prohibit hemp for minors have been filed.
In the 2024 North Carolina legislative session, several bills were also introduced to regulate hemp-derived products, including House Bill 563 and Senate Bill 521. Both failed to pass. The former died in the House after the Senate linked the proposed legalization of medical marijuana to it.
Bill Rabon, a Southport Republican, is the Senate Rules Committee chair, meaning he holds sway over what bills head to the floor. Despite his powerful role, he has filed bills for multiple years seeking to legalize medical marijuana in the state without success.
While the Senate has OK’d his bills, the House has not had the votes to support them.
When asked about past attempts by the Senate to pass medical marijuana legalization alongside hemp regulations, Reeder said legalizing marijuana had not come up in his conversations and that he hoped discussions about it wouldn’t “prevent us from doing good policy related to the intoxicating cannabinoids.” He added that he himself would not support medical marijuana legalization as he did not see it as “valid medicine at this time.”
House Rules chairman on hemp
While the Senate rules chairman supports legalizing medical marijuana, the House rules chairman — whose committee is holding the two House bills — works in the hemp industry and says he backs regulation.
Rep. John Bell has served as president of AsterraLabs, a Nashville-based CBD and hemp company, since 2023. CBD, or cannabidiol, is derived from hemp. The company sells THC products — including vapes, gummies and pre-rolls — and says on its website it follows U.S. Food and Drug Administration manufacturing standards at its 10,000-square-foot Triangle facility.
Bell said the details of what a final bill might look like were better left to the sponsors but added that he was “supportive of seeing regulations in the hemp and CBD industry.”
“I would support making sure that the good actors stay in the industry and the bad actors are out,” he said.
Bell said understanding of the industry has shifted quickly.
“I mean, shoot, two years ago, I knew very little about it, and I found myself running a premier CBD and hemp company here in North Carolina — and so, those things change over time,” he said. “But there’s been big discussion with law enforcement on age restrictions and how we navigate this and the challenges they’re facing. So I know that’s a big concern by members, and something we’d like to address.” He added that packaging restrictions are another area that’s being discussed.
While “anytime you add regulations and fees, it’s going to have an impact on business,” Bell said: “I’m for regulations; I’m for taxation of the industry.”
If done right, “we can have a very safe and regulated industry that could be good not only for consumers, but also good for business,” he said.
Smaller businesses tend to experience a greater burden from regulations.
Bell said his company does not sell to anyone under 21 and takes self-regulation seriously.
Top leaders noncommittal
As for what top leaders think, they’re noncommittal on whether bills will pass.
Senate leader Phil Berger told The News & Observer on Wednesday, after the Senate finished its work of advancing bills before the deadline, that “our expectation was the House was going to send something over to us, and we’ll be able to work with that in terms of putting the Senate stamp on it.”
House Speaker Destin Hall, meanwhile, said the issue hasn’t so far gotten much attention within his caucus. While aware of bills aimed at restricting hemp sales to minors, he said “it really hasn’t been that big of a discussion among folks.”
He said concerns exist over what’s being sold in some stores, including products from China or with unclear ingredients, and that lawmakers may need to address the issue eventually — but “I don’t know that anything’s imminent yet.”
“At some point, I imagine you’ll see us move something on it in the future,” he said.
