Protect children without destroying North Carolina’s hemp industry — or ELIMINATING North Carolina jobs.

Response: Industry stakeholders are not asking the House to legalize marijuana through HB 328. The question is whether North Carolina should protect minors and regulate lawful hemp products or instead classify finished products over 0.4 mg total THC per container as Schedule VI controlled substances. The Conference Report also creates a pathway for an FDA-approved prescription drug to follow federal scheduling action without creating a general state medical-marijuana program. Describing that distinction accurately is not a claim that HB 328 legalizes marijuana.

Real-world consequence: The marijuana talking point distracts from the actual vote: whether to impose a product threshold that reaches intoxicating products and ordinary full-spectrum CBD products alike.

Response: Prior debate about hemp does not establish that this particular Conference Report received full House scrutiny. The 0.4 mg state threshold and the express instruction that it remain effective even if subsequent federal action weakens or repeals the federal standard appear in the Conference Report reported on July 2, 2026. The House’s earlier vote on HB 328 was not a vote on this permanent state lock-in. As filed, HB 328 was a focused, industry-supported school-safety bill. The General Assembly’s prior comprehensive model was HB 563, which passed both chambers in different forms but failed to become law after the Senate attached medical-cannabis provisions. Those are materially different legislative histories, not prior approval of this Conference Report.

Real-world consequence: Businesses that invested under existing law could lose lawful inventory and market access without the transition, regulatory infrastructure, safe harbors, or product-registration pathway expected in a genuine regulatory system.

Response: This is a false choice. SB 328 passed the Senate 42-0 and the House 106-1 — and has sat in Senate Rules for more than a year. The industry affirmatively supports making hemp-derived consumables 21+ and supports penalties for selling to minors. The General Assembly could have closed the age gap more than a year ago without imposing the 0.4 mg threshold. HB 563 also supplied a complete regulatory model, including age verification, licensing, testing, packaging, labeling, taxation, and enforcement.

Real-world consequence: Bundling a broadly supported age restriction with a commercially prohibitive threshold uses children as leverage for a policy choice that reaches lawful adult products and non-intoxicating full-spectrum products.

Response: The concern about underage access deserves immediate action, but the memorandum treats every product and every retailer as equally dangerous. Responsible operators already card customers, test products, use protective packaging, label cannabinoid content, and avoid child-directed marketing. A risk-based law should require those practices statewide, set enforceable serving and package limits, prohibit child-appealing packaging, and target noncompliant sellers. HB 328’s 0.4 mg per-container rule is not calibrated to intoxication, serving size, product type, or adult use. The industry also supported HB 328 as originally filed, which prohibited covered hemp-product use in school buildings, on school grounds, and at school-sponsored events — protections that had already appeared in HB 563.

Real-world consequence: A blanket threshold removes accountable businesses while leaving consumer demand intact, increasing the incentive to purchase from out-of-state websites, informal sellers, or illicit sources with less age verification and testing.

Response: That comparison is rhetoric, not a product-specific regulatory standard. Potency, serving size, route of administration, label accuracy, and consumer behavior all matter. The proper response is mandatory independent testing, defined maximum milligrams per serving and package, clear warnings, child-resistant packaging, and enforcement against mislabeled or adulterated products. The Conference Report instead applies the same 0.4 mg container limit to a low-dose beverage, a tincture, and a full-spectrum CBD product, regardless of whether the product could reasonably produce intoxication.

Real-world consequence: Conflating all consumable hemp products with high-potency intoxicants would remove wellness products used by adults for sleep, recovery, inflammation, and general well-being along with products that present genuine potency concerns.

Response: The age prohibition is one tool and is supported. But HB 328 omits the broader compliance system that would make enforcement more efficient: retailer and manufacturer licensing, product registration, routine independent testing, traceability, packaging and labeling standards, recall procedures, and clearly assigned administrative oversight. It primarily adds criminal classifications and large civil penalties after violations occur. For prohibited products, penalties begin at $10,000, rise to $25,000 and $50,000, and each violation is separate; retailers are responsible for acts of employees and agents.

Real-world consequence: Without licenses, a registry, standardized certificates of analysis, and safe-harbor procedures, officers must distinguish products through case-by-case investigation while legitimate businesses face potentially ruinous exposure.

Response: That assertion is unsupported and unfair. Opposition includes farmers, manufacturers, distributors, laboratories, retailers, employees, landlords, packaging suppliers, payroll companies, professional-service firms, adult consumers, veterans, first responders, seniors, and people using non-intoxicating full-spectrum products. Many responsible businesses already restrict sales to adults and have asked the General Assembly for enforceable regulation for years. Disagreement over a 0.4 mg threshold is not support for sales to minors.

Real-world consequence: Labeling every opponent as a bad actor discourages the stakeholder cooperation required to build a durable system and ignores the livelihoods of thousands of North Carolinians who never sell products to children. The more relevant question is who benefits if the Conference Report passes: the licensed, testing, age-verifying North Carolina businesses lose their market, while unlicensed out-of-state websites — with no age verification at all — keep selling to the same customers.

Response: Section 781 of H.R. 5371, enacted as Public Law 119-37 on November 12, 2025, established a one-year implementation period. Its revised hemp definition and 0.4 mg total-THC-per-container standard are not scheduled to take effect until November 12, 2026. Before that date, Congress can extend the implementation period, amend the threshold or product definitions, create regulated exceptions, or repeal the provision. That possibility is not theoretical: the White House has expressly called on Congress to update the statutory definition of final hemp-derived cannabinoid products so Americans can retain access to appropriate full-spectrum CBD products while genuinely dangerous products are restricted. The Conference Report does more than temporary conformity. Its findings direct North Carolina’s standard to remain in force notwithstanding later federal action that weakens or repeals the federal total-THC standard. North Carolina would therefore convert a not-yet-effective and actively reconsidered federal policy into an independent, potentially permanent state ban.

Real-world consequence: Manufacturers cannot simply relabel inventory. They may need to destroy products, abandon formulas, cancel purchase orders, write off packaging, close facilities, or move operations, while retailers lose inventory value and recurring revenue. If Congress delays or revises Section 781, North Carolina would be left out of alignment with the federal approach and could remain materially more restrictive than federal law and neighboring states.

Response: Meaningful penalties are appropriate for knowing sales to minors and other serious violations. Proportionality and due process still matter. HB 328 can impose first-offense penalties of $10,000 for sale or delivery of a prohibited finished product, escalating to $50,000, with each violation treated separately and the retail establishment liable for covered acts of employees or agents. The bill contains no comprehensive licensing-based corrective process and no meaningful manufacturer safe harbor for tested products, good-faith reliance, remediation, or recall.

Real-world consequence: A small retailer could face business-ending liability from inventory that was lawful when purchased or from a testing dispute, while an out-of-state online seller may be harder to identify and collect against.

Response: Those subjects should be evaluated on their own merits. Support for scheduling xylazine, updating controlled-substance lists, or regulating kratom does not logically require support for a 0.4 mg hemp threshold. Combining several public-safety subjects in one conference report should not insulate the hemp provisions from independent scrutiny.

Real-world consequence: Legislators should not be forced to accept the dismantling of a lawful North Carolina industry in order to vote for unrelated criminal-justice provisions they may support.