What's Next for North Carolina Hemp?
Is CBD Legal in North Carolina?
Yes, hemp-derived CBD is legal here in North Carolina. Our local hemp farming community has been working within the North Carolina Hemp Pilot Program since 2017. The NC Industrial Hemp Pilot Program was established in 2015, then in 2017 NC began accepting applications and industrial hemp plants went into the ground for the first time in decades! We've been on a progressive but meandering track ever since.
Under the legal definition of hemp, the 2018 farm bill includes hemp cannabinoids. It is also legal to mail hemp and hemp-based products, including CBD, with 0.3% THC when the mailer complies with federal, state, and local laws (2014 and 2018 Farm Bill).
Since the enactment of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (aka 2018 Farm Bill) establishing a national hemp program, we North Carolina hemp farmers have been diligently dedicated to supporting the growth and flourish of cannabis hemp plants. After the 2018 Farm Bill, it became legal to ship small quantities of hemp flower across all 50 states. The U.S. Postal Service even went so far as issuing a statement, thus confirming the expanded policy for mailing hemp as a legal crop.
In 2019, however, North Carolina hemp farmers had their hemp crops challenged, when legislation was presented to ban smokable hemp flower because it resembles marijuana to enforcement officers. Fortunately the work of our strong and resilient hemp community gathered together and the ban did not move forward. The downside to this impasse meant that hemp oversight didn’t make the final cut as a continued responsibility of the North Carolina’s agriculture department.
North Carolina Hemp Farming Regulations
The year of 2022 marks this noticeable shift for North Carolina hemp farmers. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp production in states that do not submit plans will be regulated by the USDA. North Carolina, which is a major hemp market, did not propose a new hemp plan to the USDA and thus became the first state to discontinue its pre-existing hemp oversight operation. The result being that now all NC hemp farmers must hold a USDA-issued hemp license to lawfully grow, harvest, and/or cultivate cannabis hemp plants. NC hemp farmers must directly apply to the USDA to continue NC cannabis hemp farming practices, as opposed to a state agriculture application.
So how might this affect the quality of our Wildwood Herbal products you’ve been getting to know? It will not change a thing, merely strengthen our abilities to provide quality organic hemp plants that we manufacture into a multitude of healing supportive products. We continue to cultivate, harvest and provide full spectrum CBD products at our farm in Weaverville, NC. Time will tell where this new regulation process may take us, but for now we continue to get out in the fields and greenhouses every day to encourage new growth from our versatile green girls!