A provision inside the bill that reopened the government made certain hemp products illegal, and an owner of a hemp dispensary in Gastonia said that if it stands, it will mean the end of his business.
The bill, signed this week by President Donald Trump, reopened the government, but it also outlawed and criminalized intoxicating hemp products.
Lee Van Tine II owns Apotheca Cannabis Dispensaries, which has a location at 2001 N. Chester St. in Gastonia. He said that the bill that passed “decimates the hemp market, all of it.”
“Wood, paper, concrete, the farmers, everything,” he said.
Tine said that Apotheca sells hemp products online and operates in multiple states, and between his online business and his storefronts, he has a customer base of over 300,000.
Hemp-derived THC was legalized as part of the 2018 farm bill, and hemp-based products that contain THC, the compound in cannabis that makes you high, are now sold widely across the country. The bill Trump signed closes that loophole, and it will shut down an industry worth billions, Van Tine said. The new regulations will take effect in 2026.
“It takes out 98% of what we sell. We’re done. Done. Bankrupt. Four hundred jobs in my company, gone,” he said. “It’s so bad to me it’s been a little bit of a roller coaster. I’ve been in this for a while. We’ve been fighting these state fights. This is another one of those, but on a much bigger scale.”
Van Tine said that despite the fact that the bill passed, he is optimistic that the law will be changed to allow his industry to continue to exist.
“What you’re going to see, is you’re going to see a coalescence now of the hemp industry, the traditional cannabis industry, and the beverage industry. (They) are going to team up and figure out a plan that’s going to work,” he said. “They just brought us here together.”
