RALEIGH, N.C. — In last year’s session and this one, the North Carolina State Senate has passed legislation legalizing medical marijuana.

What You Need To Know

  • Over the past two sessions, the N.C. Senate has passed medical marijuana legislation

  • The House has brought up the bill in committee this year

  • Hemp farmers in eastern N.C. are waiting to see if the legislation will include them

For the first time in those two sessions, the House brought the bill up in committee.

There were no votes, only discussion, on the bill in House Health Committee on Tuesday.

Emotional stories were shared from both sides.

Sen. Bill Rabon, a sponsor of the bill, shared his fight with cancer, and how his doctor recommended he use marijuana during his treatment. Rabon credited marijuana for erasing his pain and saving his life during treatment.

On the other side, Corinne Gasper spoke out against the legislation. She shared that her daughter was killed by a driver under the influence of medical marijuana.

While legislators debate whether the bill will move forward, hemp farmers in the state are watching and wondering if the wording will change to include them.

Moses Matthews is part of the Albemarle Sound Cooperative, a group of Black farmers in the eastern part of North Carolina.

For years they’ve grown hemp for CBD. This year they’re growing hemp for fiber.

They aren’t traditional farmers by trade. Matthews retired from the paper industry.

“Some of the guys come out of the education field. Some came out of law and law enforcement. Just a variety of disciplines that we all came from,” Matthews said.

They joined together to try to accomplish a couple of things: battle land loss and join the growing hemp and marijuana industry.

“We want to bring in not only careers, but we want to bring in jobs,” he said. “Eastern North Carolina has had an exodus of our talent for decades. So we're trying to reverse that, and we believe that ... the cannabis industry, may be it hemp for fiber, hemp for marijuana, medical marijuana, whatever comes and could be created from that cannabis plant, some of which we haven't even imagined yet. Um, it, it will be something that provides that kind of security for, uh, for the 22nd century.”

But the way the current legislation is written, the cooperative won’t get a chance to join the medical marijuana industry.

The legislation allows for 10 companies to grow, produce and manufacture the product for the whole state. They must be able to manage the whole process and spend tens of thousands of dollars to get the licenses.

Matthews says they’re ready to take on the challenge, but the current wording boxes them out.

“Many of the members have hoop houses and really, grow houses that would accommodate as necessary for medical marijuana. So we've, we're just waiting for that, that part of the policy is to be determined and established, so that we can transition into medical marijuana,” he said. “We know that we can, we can match, um, in terms of medical marijuana, the performance of any anybody else that's at the table. We have the discipline, folks of different discipline.”