Hemp legalization stalled by game of political chicken
State House agriculture leaders on Wednesday removed a proposal to permanently legalize hemp from the Senate Farm Bill, raising the stakes in a high-profile political standoff that could make a burgeoning industry illegal overnight.
North Carolina temporarily made hemp legal in 2015 to allow an agricultural pilot program to try the crop. Since then, the hemp industry has blossomed in this state. But the temporary legalization expires June 30. If it isn’t extended, the state’s controlled substance law would no longer make a distinction between hemp and marijuana, which is illegal. With just a week remaining before that deadline, hemp growers, processors and retailers are getting worried.
The House and the Senate have passed language to permanently legalize the crop, but each chamber wants it to pass in its bill, not the other chamber’s. That’s led to an impasse between the agriculture leaders in the two bodies.
Removing the language from the Senate’s Farm Act would leave the House’s standalone hemp legalization bill as the only option.
“I regret that you all chose to pull hemp out of this bill,” Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, the Senate Agriculture chair and the bill’s author, said during a House agriculture committee meeting Wednesday. “You know, I'm not being critical, but we started it in the Senate in 2019. Took us 18 months to get the farm bill through, and I was hoping we'd be able to finish it this year because we know we have a deadline looming.”
State Rep. John Ager, D-Buncombe, echoed Jackson’s disappointment. “I was horrified when I went through the PCS and realized that,” he said. “I realize there's another bill in the Senate that's a standalone bill. If we can get that moving, then maybe we won't have to worry about it. But if we can't, I think we need to think about putting hemp back in here. Maybe not today, but maybe when it hits the floor.”
Rep. Terence Everitt, D-Wake, also voiced concern about the exclusion. “Is that bill going to go through the Senate,” he said, “or do we have to be concerned about it not being in this bill?”
Jackson responded: “I can't answer that question at this point in time. We'll look at it and review it. So far, it’s sitting in the Rules committee, and that's not my committee.”
