RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina hemp retailers have less than a month before a new federal definition of hemp takes hold, a change that will pull many of their best-selling products off the shelf on Dec. 11 unless Congress steps in.
The new ceiling is 0.4 milligrams of total THC in a whole package, and anything above it loses its status as legal hemp. That sweeps in hemp-derived THC gummies, seltzers and flower that have been legal to sell for years. For scale, a single bag of 20 gummies at 5 milligrams apiece carries 100 milligrams of THC, 250 times the new ceiling.
An earlier piece of the federal change already kicked in this week. It bars hemp-derived products made with cannabinoids that a cannabis plant cannot produce naturally, a category that makes up only a small slice of the market. CBD products that stay under the 0.4-milligram THC limit remain legal.
Shop owners in the Triangle say the December cutoff threatens their staffing and in some cases their survival. Some say they are holding off on lease renewals and large inventory orders because they cannot tell whether they will be allowed to operate next month. THC beverage makers also stand to lose the grocery stores, bottle shops and restaurants where their drinks are now sold.
The products trace back to the 2018 federal Farm Bill, which legalized hemp. Since then the cannabinoid side of the business has boomed, and a Whitney Economics report released in September put the national industry at $38.7 billion with roughly 350,000 jobs.
At the state level, Gov. Josh Stein has already named a cannabis advisory panel charged with studying policy and recommending how to oversee hemp sales. Several lawmakers, including Democrats who will hold the majority next year, said it is too soon to predict what the state might do, though they hope to take up the issue once committees are organized.
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