This North Carolina Brewery Now Sells Pre-Rolled CBD Joints

Weed may still be illegal in North Carolina, but one Carrboro-based brewery is now selling pre-rolled joints anyway. Sort of.

Steel String Brewery announced last week that it’s now selling “pre-rolled CBD joints” at the business’ relatively new Pluck Farm. The farm, just west of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, grows flowers, hops, native fruit varieties, and more, and boasts a beer garden as well. But the joints come from Handèwa Farms, an Afro-indigenous and women-led collective growing hemp (among other things) in nearby Rougemont.

This isn’t marijuana; the joints don’t have any THC or psychoactive properties, Steel String notes in its announcement. CBD products and stores proliferated across the state in the last few years, from chain Hemp XR in Greensboro to the Hemp Company in Raleigh. But it’s rarely packaged as a fat, smokable joint.

Hemp isn’t new to North Carolina, though. The Tuscarora Nation historically cultivated it, INDY Week pointed out in a piece about Handèwa. And the latter sells CBD joints directly on its website. Yet none of that means the experience of buying any kind of pre-rolled joint at a beer garden — or restaurant, brewery, farm, or anything similar — and enjoying it is commonplace in the state.

North Carolina’s archaic approach to cannabis puts it at odds with states like neighboring Virginia, which recently legalized weed. That proximity means it’ll be easier to get your hands on some indica than ever before, even if you don’t have a hookup. The state legislature is currently debating a highly restrictive form of legalization that would permit medical marijuana in very selective cases. Some might see it in a small step in the right direction, but this middling and somewhat reactionary approach makes it pretty clear that the Republican-dominated legislature isn’t interested in full legalization anytime soon.

Until then, you’ll have to settle for a stand-in, at least if you’re trying to stay on the up-and-up in the Old North State. Smoking a CBD joint at Pluck Farm — maybe accompanied by Steel String’s new Salter Sneakers drink featuring its watermelon witbier with a salt rim and a slice of organic watermelon — isn’t the same as experiencing legal weed. At all, really. But with Handèwa’s help, the brewery is still at the forefront of something here.• Steel String Brewery [Official]

• Handèwa Farms [Official]
• With its First Harvest Underway, Handèwa Farms Looks Toward the Future [Indy Week]
• EDITORIAL: NC Cannabis Bill Denies Reality [Triad City Beat]