How the NC hemp bill, HB328, bans CBD — This got fixed

After this post, the NC House stripped out the CBD ban and ended up with only age-gating at 21. The bill moves on to the Senate as of June 26, 2025.

Here’s the original post, for the record:

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The primary intoxicant in marijuana or cannabis is THC.  CBD, meanwhile. is universally acknowledged to be non-intoxicating .

But the North Carolina Farm Bill Drug bill that passed the Senate and is heading for the House allows THC but bans CBD. That’s crazy!

A Legislator told me I’m missing something — so I may be wrong here. But I offered a reward on Twitter or X for an explanation of what I’m missing, with no takers.

Let’s take a CBD gummy with no THC of any kind.  I think it’s a “prohibited hemp-derived consumable product” under North Carolina House Bill 328.

It’s a hemp product under this definition:  

GS 90-87 (13b): “Hemp products” means all products made from hemp, including, but not limited to, cloth, cordage, fiber, food, fuel, paint, paper, particleboard, plastics, seed, seed meal and seed oil for consumption, and verified propagules for cultivation if the seeds originate from hemp varieties.https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/BySection/Chapter_90/GS_90-87.pdf

HB328, https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/House/PDF/H328v4.pdf, makes that gummy a “Hemp-derived consumable product.”

(7) Hemp-derived consumable product. – A hemp product that is a finished good intended for human ingestion or inhalation that at the time of sale to the ultimate consumer contains a delta-9 THC concentration of not more than three-tenths of one percent (0.3%) on a dry weight basis. This term does not include hemp products intended for topical application, or seeds or seed-derived ingredients that are generally recognized as safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The bill makes CBD a “Hemp-derived cannabinoid.”

 (6) Hemp-derived cannabinoid. – Any phytocannabinoid found in hemp, including delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9 THC), tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), cannabidiol (CBD), cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), cannabinol, (CBN), cannabigerol (CBG), cannabichromene (CBC), cannabicyclol (CBL),  cannabivarin (CBV), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), cannabidivarin, (CBDV), cannabicitran (CBT), delta-7 tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-7 THC), delta-8 tetrahydrocannibinol (delta-8 THC), or delta-10 tetrahydrocannibinol.

So that CBD gummy is a hemp product (GS 90-87), and that that hemp product (the gummy) is a hemp-derived consumable product (7) containing a “hemp-derived cannabinoid (6).  OK so far.

But then the bill (17) prohibits “any hemp product that is a finished good intended for human ingestion or inhalation that contains concentrations of hemp-derived cannabinoids other than delta-9 THC.”  

(17) Prohibited hemp-derived consumable product. – A hemp product that is a finished good intended for human ingestion or inhalation that contains concentrations of hemp-derived cannabinoids other than delta-9 THC. This term does not include hemp products intended for topical application or seeds or seed-derived ingredients that are generally recognized as safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

So (17) prohibits a hemp product with any hemp-derived cannabinoids other than delta-9 THC.   CBD is a hemp-derived cannabinoid other than delta-9 THC.  So that gummy with CBD, which is a hemp-derived cannabinoid other than delta-9 THC, looks to me like a “prohibited  hemp-derived consumable product.” 

The bill bans “Prohibited hemp-derived consumable products” with this new language:  

“§ 18D-102.5. Offense for possessing prohibited hemp-derived consumable product. 

“Any person who possesses a prohibited hemp-derived consumable product is guilty of a Class A1 misdemeanor”.

So I’m back in the soup.  Yes, that gummy is a “hemp-derived consumable product,” but it’s a “prohibited hemp-derived consumable product.”  That’s how I read it.

Maybe I’m missing something.