The Other Room Where NC Cannabis Policy Gets Shaped: A Guide to the Advisory Council

Most of the attention on hemp in North Carolina goes to the legislature, which makes sense. That is where bills pass or fail.

But there is a second track running alongside it, and it meets four times before the end of September. The Governor's Advisory Council on Cannabis owes a final report by the end of the year, and that document is likely to shape whatever legislation gets written in 2027.

The council's mandate is broad. It covers cannabis regulation generally, not just hemp. But one of its central recommendations would treat all cannabinoids by a single standard regardless of source, which puts hemp-derived products squarely inside its work.

The meetings are open to the public, though they get very little attention outside the process itself.

What the Council Is and Where It Came From

Governor Josh Stein created the council by executive order in 2025 and asked it to recommend a comprehensive approach to regulating cannabis in North Carolina. The brief covers public safety, market structure, revenue, and youth protection.

It has more than two dozen members. The co-chairs are Dr. Lawrence Greenblatt, the State Health Director, and Matt Scott, the district attorney for Robeson County. Four sitting legislators serve on it: Senators Bill Rabon and Kandie Smith, and Representatives John Bell and Zack Hawkins. The full membership is published on the NCDHHS site and includes farmers, law enforcement, tribal representatives, agency staff, and a tax policy specialist.

The council delivered an interim report in the spring. The final one is due December 31.

The September Meeting Schedule

Three subcommittees meet virtually this month, followed by the full council in person:

• Thursday, September 18, 1:00 to 3:00 PM. Market and Regulatory Subcommittee. Virtual via Microsoft Teams.

• Tuesday, September 23, 2:00 to 3:00 PM. Public Safety Subcommittee. Virtual via Microsoft Teams.

• Thursday, September 25, 1:00 to 3:00 PM. Revenue and Legal Subcommittee. Virtual via Microsoft Teams.

• Monday, September 29, 1:30 to 5:00 PM. Full Advisory Council. In person at DHHS Headquarters, 1915 Health Services Way, Raleigh, Training Room B.

Meeting links and passcodes are posted on the council's page. As of this writing, no agendas have been published for any of the four.

The schedule continues into the fall, with subcommittee meetings in mid and late October, another round in November, and a second full council meeting on November 17.

What Each Subcommittee Actually Handles

Market and Regulatory

This group works on how a regulated market would be structured. Licensing, product categories, retail rules, and the question of how hemp-derived products and marijuana would be treated relative to each other.

Public Safety

Enforcement, impaired driving, youth access, and the practical burden any new framework would place on police and prosecutors.

Revenue and Legal

Taxation, revenue projections, and the legal architecture a framework would need. Council minutes indicate regulators from Virginia and Connecticut were scheduled to present to this subcommittee, though the council page does not list presenters.

What the Council Has Already Heard

The August meetings produced some of the most concrete testimony of the year, and it is worth knowing what is already on the record.

On lab testing, Yasha Kahn of MCR Labs told the council that all lab results should be made public, warned that shopping between labs for inflated potency numbers happens in every market with more than one lab, and estimated that standing up an accredited state lab takes somewhere between nine and eighteen months.

On impaired driving, NMS Labs told the Public Safety Subcommittee that no blood THC level reliably establishes impairment, and that North Carolina has roughly 175 trained drug recognition experts among about 34,000 officers.

On enforcement costs, counsel for the Conference of District Attorneys said training would carry a substantial fiscal note and take at least six months.

On revenue, the Office of State Budget and Management discussed how a retail tax might be structured and collected. Council member Pat Oglesby, an attorney who founded the Center for New Revenue and works on tax policy, has argued for a potency-based approach rather than a price-based one.

Where the Council Stands Right Now

The interim report recommended treating cannabinoids by molecule rather than by plant source, which would mean a unified total THC standard regardless of whether a product came from hemp or marijuana. It identified a dozen regulatory gaps, deferred the question of potency caps to the final report, and estimated potential annual revenue in the range of five to seven hundred million dollars.

The co-chairs' preliminary recommendation favored an adult-use framework with medical protections, rather than a medical-only step first.

That said, nobody involved is treating the outcome as settled. Greenblatt put it plainly earlier this month, saying the council is not in any way convinced the state is definitely moving toward being a marijuana-legal state. It could happen, he said, or it may not.

How to Attend or Submit a Comment

These are public meetings, and participation is more straightforward than most people assume:

• Join the virtual subcommittee meetings through the Teams links posted on the council's NCDHHS page

• Attend the September 29 full council meeting in person at DHHS headquarters in Raleigh

• Submit written comment through the council's public comment portal, which remains open

The council received more than three thousand public comments before its interim report. For anyone who has never contacted a state body before, the portal is the lowest-effort way in.

Why the December Report Matters More Than Any Single Meeting

It is easy to look at a subcommittee meeting agenda and conclude that nothing much happens there. Sometimes nothing does.

The reason to pay attention anyway is what these sessions add up to. The final report lands at the end of December, after every legislative window this year has closed. Whatever is in it becomes the starting point for the 2027 long session, when a broader range of bills can actually be introduced.

For hemp operators specifically, a few threads are worth following:

• Whether the council endorses a single molecule-based THC standard, which would fold hemp and marijuana into one framework

• What it recommends on potency caps, a question the interim report deliberately left open

• How it handles testing and lab accreditation, given the nine to eighteen month timeline already on the record

• What tax structure it lands on, since that shapes whether a legal market is viable for small operators

None of that gets decided in a single two-hour virtual meeting. All of it gets decided across the next three months.

The Simplest Version

Four meetings before October. A report in December. A legislature that picks it up in 2027.

The people who show up and comment now are the ones whose concerns end up in the document. The ones who wait for the report to be published will be reacting to it instead.