Senate Bill 350, the Marijuana Justice and Reinvestment Act, would legalize adult-use cannabis in North Carolina for people age 21 and older and create a comprehensive regulatory system for cultivation, manufacturing, testing, transportation, retail sales, on-site consumption, and taxation. The bill would add a new Chapter 18D to the General Statutes, place oversight largely with the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, and authorize the Commission to adopt detailed rules on licensing, product safety, advertising, packaging, security, delivery, and consumer education. It also allows local governments to regulate or prohibit cannabis establishments within their borders, with limits on host community agreements and specific rules for on-site consumption businesses.
The bill also creates a separate medical cannabis framework in Chapter 90, allowing patients with qualifying conditions to obtain registry identification cards and receive legal protections for medical use, subject to rules adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Medical Care Commission. In addition, it establishes automatic expunction for certain marijuana and hashish convictions that would be legal under the new law, with the Administrative Office of the Courts responsible for identifying eligible cases and courts ordering expungements by July 1, 2028. The bill further repeals or revises multiple existing controlled-substance, paraphernalia, and tax provisions to conform state law to legalization.
The bill would significantly alter North Carolina criminal, regulatory, tax, housing, employment, and licensing laws. It removes state penalties for lawful adult possession, use, cultivation, and commercial activity involving cannabis, while creating new infractions and felony penalties for conduct outside the bill’s limits, such as underage possession, public smoking, impaired operation of vehicles, unlawful extraction, and false identification. It also creates a cannabis excise tax and directs revenue to regulation, community reinvestment, social opportunity grants, education and technical assistance, substance abuse treatment, public education, impaired-driving enforcement, and research. The bill would also protect certain employment, custody, tenancy, and professional licensing rights for lawful cannabis users and participants in the regulated industry.
The overall sentiment reflected in the bill text is strongly supportive of legalization, emphasizing racial justice, community reinvestment, public health regulation, and economic opportunity. The findings section frames prohibition as ineffective and discriminatory, and the bill is structured to promote participation by people and communities harmed by prior enforcement. No committee transcript or vote history was provided, so there is no recorded legislative debate or vote sentiment to summarize beyond the bill’s own policy framing.
The main points of contention likely concern the scope of legalization, the state’s role in retail sales through ABC stores and local boards, the extent of local control, and the detailed regulatory and fee structure for businesses. Other likely areas of dispute include the automatic expunction provisions, limits on host community agreements, protections for employees and tenants, and whether the bill’s tax and reinvestment model is sufficient or too restrictive. The bill also contains extensive rulemaking authority and compliance requirements, which could draw concern from both legalization advocates seeking broader access and opponents worried about public safety, youth access, impaired driving, and federal-law conflicts.
If enacted, the bill would repeal or substantially narrow North Carolina’s existing criminal prohibitions on marijuana for adults 21 and older, create a new statewide cannabis regulatory chapter, establish medical cannabis protections, and require conforming changes across controlled substances, paraphernalia, taxation, and related statutes. It would shift oversight to the ABC Commission and DHHS, create new funds and revenue allocations, and require automatic expunction of certain past marijuana convictions, affecting consumers, patients, businesses, law enforcement, courts, landlords, employers, and local governments.
Likely points of contention include whether North Carolina should legalize adult-use cannabis at all, whether sales should be limited to ABC stores and local-board stores, and how much authority local governments should retain to ban or regulate cannabis businesses. The bill’s equity-focused licensing preferences, limits on major investors, and restrictions on host community agreements may also be controversial, as may the automatic expunction provisions, the breadth of employment and housing protections, and the new excise tax structure and revenue distribution.