Hemp farmers, lawmakers, and the pending end of an industry

As the government reopened, federal officials quietly rewrote the rules on hemp at the last minute, putting a local $2 million-a-year brand at risk of shutting down, laying off 14 people, and completely overhauling its farm next November.

Beyond farmers and shop owners, even some government representatives weren’t happy with the decision.

“The Senate jammed us up on this,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, House representative of North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District, which encompasses Burke County.

According to Moore, challenging the caveat in the bill would have meant punting it back to the Senate, forcing lawmakers to appoint a committee and restart the process.

“We couldn’t not pass the bill,” Moore said. “The federal government would’ve been closed for who knows how much longer and would have jeopardized a lot more things.”

The ban will affect most products across hemp shop shelves starting Nov. 12 next year, despite shop owners pointing out that many customers come in for the medicinal effects of CBD (cannabinoid) products.

While the ban focuses primarily on THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive chemical in hemp and marijuana that produces the intoxicating effects, many CBD products will be caught in the crossfire for the minimal presence of THC.

Senators who supported the ban cited concerns regarding child access and accidental ingestion as well as loopholes surrounding the intoxicating effects of high-potency THC compounds in hemp-derived products.

Since hemp’s legalization in the 2018 Farm Bill, the regulations surrounding the plant have focused on a 0.3% THC allowance based on dry weight.

This meant any hemp produced could not contain more than 0.3% of the Delta-9 strain of THC common in marijuana, but allowed flexibility on other similarly functioning compounds like Delta-8 and THCA.

Past the shops that have popped up across the county since 2018, the law affects farmers in the hemp industry, essentially making their crops useless.

Alpine’s Hemp Co. President and CEO Joe Fox expects the hit to operations to be massive. Fox runs a hemp farm out of Lincolnton, providing tree-shaped edibles, flower, and other hemp products to approximately 300 stores across North and South Carolina.

At the five Alpine’s storefront locations between Boone and Mooresville — including Connelly Springs — the hemp chain carries everything from gummies and vapes to slushies and body butters.

“For us, to give you an idea, it not only is gonna be a double-triple-quadruple-whammy Hiroshima-type event — not just because of stores — because I’ve got 14 mouths I’ve got to feed,” Fox said.

Of the 70 SKUs, or individual products, that Alpine’s provides, all but one mushroom gummy falls under the ban’s parameters of containing less than 0.4 milligrams of combined total THC.

The specified “total THC” amalgamates Delta-9, Delta-8, THCA, and any other variation of the compound into one portion allowance that critics of the law say is unrealistically small.

Although Fox and Alpine’s COO Alaina Tipton began the hemp brand about five years ago, the farm itself has been in Fox’s family since 1778 when his ancestor, German pioneer Peter Finger, arrived in America.

Since Fox took the helms, he has invested everything into its success.

“Now, I can’t even grow fiber or grain and have a compliant plant, because of the change in the definition,” Fox said. “I’d have to switch back to soy beans or corn or winter wheat. I’d have to literally kill a $2 million a year business, get rid of 14 people, five stores — it’s a massive problem. It’s not me closing up one smoke shop or one dispensary.”

Luckily for Fox, some lawmakers aren’t sitting on their hands in the meantime. Moore explained that there are laws in the works to reverse the ban before it takes effect — and he plans to co-sponsor the legislation.

“The process was terrible,” Moore said. “There was no reason to stick that in that reopen bill. It didn’t have a hearing and a committee. It didn’t have any public hearings. It didn’t have any input from stakeholders. It didn’t get the kind of discussion and consideration that it should get as a stand-alone bill.”

Many critics of the hemp ban responded to the bill by pointing to the medical aspect of hemp use, which traces back to the CBD compound reportedly assisting with pain and nausea relief among other effects.

According to Moore, there is data showing that hemp use also helps with autoimmune diseases, pain management, and chronic inflammation, meaning the law will hit people who don’t use hemp for its psychoactive effects or own a shop or farm.

“I actually know people that I’ve talked to who have been getting relief from hemp-based products and were able to actually stop taking some of the really tough prescription medications that have histories of debilitating conditions, addiction, etc,” Moore said. “I think it’s terrible for the business owners, but I think it’s terrible for people who were needing this and using this with some success to deal with chronic health problems.”

According to “Patterns of cannabidiol use among marijuana users in the United States,” a study conducted by Ji-Yeun Park and published by the National Library of Medicine in January 2025, 10.5% of the United States population used CBD in the previous 30 days.

However, Fox believes the effects run deeper than 10.5% — alleging the government is taking away the rights of around 20% of the populace, or 68 million citizens.

“We’ve been going to Washington D.C. for two-and-a-half years,” Fox said. “We’ve been telling them in meetings with these staffers, these congressmen, or their committee staff — we want regulation.”

The regulation Fox has in mind consists of four pillars: an age restriction of 21 or older, child-proof packaging, supplemental facts and warnings, and third-party lab testing. Other hemp shop owners echoed similar opinions.

“They gave us a set of rules in 2018,” Fox said. “Seven years later, they decide to take the goal post and move it. They didn’t move it a little, they yanked the whole damned thing out of the stadium and put it a block away. So, we won’t be able to compete [with alcohol products]. They’ve put us in a situation where we can’t survive.”