Hemp gummies, cannabis-infused drinks, and other similar products live in a legal gray zone, but they're big business in North Carolina. They accounted for $3.2 billion in revenue last year, according to Whitney Economics. If you’ve ever bought an intoxicating hemp product yourself, how did you know exactly what was in it? It’s on the label, right? Well, it’s not as straightforward as it seems according to an investigation by reporter Jeffrey Billman of The Assembly. He joins WFAE's Marshall Terry to talk more about it.
Marshall Terry: So you spent months investigating what’s in these products. How did you go about doing that exactly and what did you find?
Jeffrey Billman: We sent reporters all over the state to dispensaries and to vape shops and to convenience stores to purchase products, mostly at random. There were a few we decided to buy intentionally. Then we sent them to a lab in Virginia called the Laboratory for Forensic Toxicology Research at Virginia Commonwealth University.
We had 21 products. More than half had unsafe levels of aerobic bacteria. Three had coliform, a bacteria that's found in some soils, but also fecal matter. Five had unsafe levels of yeast and mold as well. We also found that five had more Delta-9 THC than is allowed under state and federal law. We found a lot of the products had different cannabinoids, different levels of cannabinoids that were advertised. Some had less, a few had more or much more.
Terry: So maybe this is obvious but what are the health risks here? And do people even think about those? These products have just become so ubiquitous so quickly.
Billman: People's risk tolerances can vary with some of the toxins, contaminants, that sort of thing. Some people are going to be more sensitive to those than others. For folks that are maybe immunocompromised, they may pose a higher risk than people who are not. I think maybe people who consume a lot might have a higher risk than people who don't. THC potency is similar. It affects people in different ways. Some people are more prone to particular mental illnesses, and THC plays off of that. Other people can handle it better. When you're in an unregulated space and there's really no sort of backstop, I think, there's no one checking, there are going to be risks associated with it.
Terry: Part of the story here is the lack of regulation of these products in North Carolina, right? How did we get here, and is there an effort to change that?
Billman: Yes, the short version is there have been multiple efforts to change that over the years. The legislature has had bills in every session since at least 2023 to regulate hemp, but the House and Senate have been unable to agree on what regulation should look like. The governor has an advisory council that is looking at cannabis regulation more broadly, and it issued preliminary recommendations in April. It's been difficult for lawmakers, policymakers to figure out what the proper approach is, whether they should be banning a lot of these products, banning most of them, whether the regulation should be more industry friendly. Add to this last year Congress passed what will be, if it goes into effect later this year, a federal ban on pretty much all of these products. These products will still be legal under state law, but they will be illegal federally — similar to how marijuana is in a lot of the legal marijuana states. I don't know how it's all going to shake out.
Terry: What’s been the response to your findings from state officials and also businesses selling these products?
Billman: Some of the businesses whose products we tested pushed back on the results. They have their own testing, and their testing generally aligns with what they say their products are. The governor's office was concerned, I think that's fair. We've also heard from federal law enforcement, and they were concerned. From the people we've talked to, there is a general sense that the status quo is untenable to the degree that people need to have some assurance that what they're buying is safe and that what they think they're buying is what they're actually getting.
