Hemp drugs will not be prohibited in NC — or will they?

“With hemp THC drugs wide open 24/7 and unregulated in North Carolina now, I see no chance that they will be fully prohibited.  So I think the only hope for North Carolina is to regulate them.” — I wrote that in September, but now in November that Congress is treating hemp like marijuana, I’m not so sure. Here’s what I thought back then:

Here’s why I think prohibition of hemp THC drugs in North Carolina is far-fetched.  To be sure, some conservative Christians oppose regulation – like my friend Rev. Mark Creech who writes this:  “Yes, marijuana is already in our state. Yes, vape shops sell THC products that can get people high. Yes, there’s a problem with unregulated sales. But legalization will not fix this – it will only make it worse. Regulation will not make a dangerous drug safe. It will simply give it the government’s stamp of approval and flood our communities with more of it.”  https://revmarkcreech.org/north-carolina-should-not-follow-the-marijuana-legalization-trend/.

But our communities are already flooded today.  Our situation is the mirror image of a state moving from prohibition to state regulation.  We are hoping to move from the Tomato Model, where weed is sold everywhere, untested, to kids or anyone – like tomatoes – to a more sensible model.

Now there’s been no hemp drug prohibition bill introduced here at all, but variations on regulation bills have passed our House 106-2 and our Senate 35-7.  https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookup/2025/S328;https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/House/PDF/H328v3.pdf.

Meanwhile, prohibition would be harder here than in Texas, where hemp intoxicants are as wide open and unregulated as in North Carolina, and where a strong effort to prohibit them just failed — although prohibition had a strong force in the well-financed medical marijuana industry there, which pushed hard and spent big to eliminate competition.  https://cannabislaw.report/media-report-texas-medical-marijuana-companies-spent-big-on-republican-lobbyists-to-push-thc-ban/

I understand that some would like these drugs to disappear, but for now in North Carolina we have a terrible situation that continues every day.  https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article297404669.html.   We need an age 21 rule, to start.  And much more.