House looks to define smokable hemp as marijuana

Tags: farming, Jimmy Dixon, hemp, drugs
Posted 10:51 a.m. today
Updated 6:44 p.m. today

By Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief, & Matthew Burns, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — A legislative fight over hemp production in North Carolina shifted from a farming bill to a measure on illegal drugs on Wednesday, as a House committee voted to classify smokable hemp as a controlled substance.

Smokable hemp was the focus of two House committees on Wednesday morning, as Finance considered the annual Farm Act and Judiciary debated changes to the state's Controlled Substances Act.

A rewrite to Senate Bill 352 would tweak the definition of marijuana in state statutes to include smokable hemp. Processed hemp products and extracts such as CBD oil would remain legal in North Carolina under the proposal.

"This bill does not prevent a licensed grower from growing, handling, selling [or] transporting and product that they can produce," Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, told members of the House Judiciary committee. "The only thing it does is that it prohibits consumption of smokable hemp, with the exception of the CBD oil."

Smokable hemp became legal last year when the federal government loosened its restrictions in an effort to boost the wider hemp industry, which creates a range of products, including rope, clothes, paper, food and CBD oil.

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