NC should reject backdoor marijuana legalization
When it returns to session, North Carolina’s legislature will consider House Bill 328, an effort to legalize recreational hemp-derived THC drugs.
The bill’s being sold as an advance for public safety that also recognizes commercial reality. But it would, in effect, legalize marijuana through the backdoor after repeated rejections by the state through the front.
The bill is a Trojan horse: It proposes to ban some intoxicating hemp products fully, while legalizing recreational marijuana so long as it is derived from hemp and sold to people over 21 — and away from schools.
In other words, a complete surrender to the addiction industry that drives the THC trade.
The experiences of other states show the damage that these products do, even when they’re strictly controlled by a regulatory regime.
Look at Connecticut, where these hemp intoxicants are legal and “regulated.”
Hundreds of poison-control calls involving marijuana consumption by under-17s have dogged the state since 2019.
Does anyone think kid-friendly edibles aren’t driving that problem?
Or look at California, where the hemp crisis got so bad in 2024 that Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency ban on the products, a ban which the state is now poised to make permanent.
Or look at Colorado, another deployer of age restrictions. There, teen ER visits post-legalization quadrupled, with a majority of those cases needing psychiatric treatment.
And it’s not just hemp.
Look at the wider “over 21” marijuana market in New York, where poison control calls involving children and marijuana somehow jumped fourfold between 2019 and 2022
All these rules and regulations and regimes are meant to restrict access to THC products; they arise from the incorrect belief that a legal market will somehow cut into illegal markets and stem the tide of illicit use.
First of all, this raises a question: If these products are so safe and wonderful, why on earth would there be any need to restrict them at all?
And why might there be special need to keep them out of schools?
More importantly, legal markets bleed seamlessly into illegal ones, even helping supercharge them (as with the estimated thousands of illegal pot shops in New York City versus the mere dozens of legal ones).
“Regulating” these marketplaces is plainly impossible.
And the science tells us there’s no good reason for any product containing Delta 8-THC or other hemp-derived psychoactives to be available to anyone, anywhere, of any age.
The Food and Drug Administration has determined these chemicals cause hallucinations, vomiting, and loss of consciousness (among other nasty effects). They are extremely addictive. And because they’re so new, we’re only beginning to understand what other harm they may be causing.
We do, however, know that tens thousands of Americans have contacted poison control centers because of drugs like this in recent years.
And we know that THC is linked to all kinds of physical and mental health issues — violent behavior, increased risk of dementia and psychosis, and severe cardiac issues.
A study even found a significant link between marijuana use and tooth decay.
This stuff is a danger to every user and a major underminer of public health generally.
That’s why Congress now stands poised to make any intoxicants derived from hemp federally illegal this year.
How much clearer can the danger here be? How can North Carolina consider giving a green light to any use, even if it’s “restricted”?
The answer isn’t “regulation,” which simply doesn’t work (just as it failed to keep kids from drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco).
And don’t forget that this law, if passed, would in addition to its bad commercial effects send a wider signal of normalization: This stuff is A-OK or even healthy or helpful.
No.
North Carolina’s legislature should reject this attempt to legalize recreational marijuana using hemp as a loophole. It’s bad for kids, families, and society.
“NC should reject backdoor marijuana legalization” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
