GREEN SKIES, PARTLY CLOUDY: Getting into the weeds with a new dispensary, prohibition and North Carolina’s Farm Bill

Queen Anne Suppliers had its soft opening earlier in May, and owner Britton Edwards shares how life led to this booming yet still controversial business before his grand opening on June 20.

Britton Edwards literally and figuratively stands by his products at Queen Anne Suppliers. Photo by S Gentry.

Edwards is a Wilmington native who graduated from Hoggard High School before venturing off to Asheville, then moving for film work in Atlanta, and eventually managing two farms, an extraction lab, and a dispensary in Oregon. Edwards came home with a specific mission. He's seen what a legal, well-run cannabis market looks like. He thinks Wilmington—and North Carolina—can do the same.

"I've been a wholesale flower retailer in the hemp market for about three years now," Edwards says. "I finally got some investment money to open a shop—and I want to bring a certain style. Since I have a lot of experience in a legal and recreational market, some of the shops around here do it a little backwards, in my opinion. … There are only a few of us doing it the right way here in Wilmington.”

Queen Anne Suppliers, located at 4405 Wrightsville Ave. and open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., is about responsible distribution and use of legal cannabis, as well some history and education. To understand what Edwards is doing (and why it matters), you have to understand the tangled legal landscape he and others must navigate, a century of propaganda, and what's at stake as North Carolina inches toward a reckoning with cannabis.

Let's start with the word: marijuana.

"The only word I'm not allowed to use, in the eyes of the law and the way they have it written up in the Farm Bill, is ‘marijuana,’" Edwards explains. "I can use ‘cannabis,’ I can use ‘weed,’ but not ‘marijuana.’"

That distinction is the entire legal architecture that makes a shop like Queen Anne Suppliers possible. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp—defined as cannabis containing no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight—was federally decriminalized and removed from the Controlled Substances Act. Any cannabis plant above that threshold is legally classified as marijuana and remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.

The result is a market that is, as Edwards puts it, written loosely and treated almost like a vegetable. Hemp-derived products, including THCA flower (which converts to THC when combusted), can be legally sold, shipped across state lines, and purchased without a medical card. 

I scan the rows of glass jars behind Edwards filled with federally legal green clumps, identical to what you'd find in a Colorado dispensary, with one exception: the word on the label can't be “marijuana.”

"There are a lot of people left in the gray area," Edwards notes of the distinction, "because of how loose they wrote the hemp laws."

The booming market is why the Farm Bill's pending expiration this year has the cannabis industry on edge. The original 2018 bill was set to expire in 2023, then extended. It now faces a politically charged reauthorization, with some lawmakers pushing to close the THCA and hemp-derived cannabinoid gap entirely. Mitch McConnell, who championed hemp's inclusion in the 2018 bill, has since expressed concern about products he sees as deceptively marketed—particularly edibles attractive to children.

"That was one of the big reasons McConnell was striking down the Farm Bill," Edwards says. "Products were coming in labeled and marketed towards THCA, with branding that catches the eyes of young kids—and that's a no-go."

It's a real problem that Edwards is clear-eyed about. Some shops, he says, bring in synthetics and slap compliant labels on them. It's part of why he's committed to sourcing only from vetted Oregon farms, requiring COAs (Certificates of Analysis) on everything, and refusing to carry anything he considers “sketchy.” 

"I want to make sure we have quality and everything's precise," he says. "No riff raff."

Despite the legislative uncertainty, there is bipartisan momentum in Congress for both hemp clarification and broader cannabis reform. And in North Carolina specifically, the question may soon go directly to voters.

"Even if the Farm Bill gets shut down here in North Carolina, we're talking about putting a vote to the people for medical and recreation,” Edwards continues. “I think at this point in time, it would pass with flying colors."

The story of cannabis prohibition in America at the core is often rooted in how fear, racism, and economic interest can be weaponized into law—and how long those laws can outlast the propaganda that fueled them.

Alcohol prohibition offers the most obvious parallel. From 1920 to 1933, the Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors—a moral crusade that produced organized crime, bathtub gin, and that “yee-haw, f*ck the law” attitude that carried a nationwide underground economy before being repealed as a failure. 

More to the Story: Ed Helm’s history podcast, SNAFU, has a whole season dedicated to prohibition and the stories (and people) behind it. It’s educational and entertaining. 

The potential lesson is that prohibition doesn't work. Public opinion and politicians tend to agree or disagree on the effectiveness of the concept depending on the subject (re: guns, abortion care, etc). In this case, alchohol prohibition relocated markets, removed safety standards, and filled prisons.

Cannabis prohibition followed a similar playbook. The federal campaign against marijuana in the 1930s was driven in large part by Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger's anti-marijuana crusade often used racist rhetoric, targeted Hispanic and Black communities (and celebrities like Billie Holiday) to provide the political groundwork to effectively demonize the plant and its users until it became illegal in 1937.

Nevertheless, the plant has deep roots in American history. Hemp (the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana) was cultivated by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The first drafts of the Declaration of Independence are believed to have been written on hemp paper, though the final signed document is on parchment. The federal government actually promoted hemp cultivation during World War II under the "Hemp for Victory" campaign.

"This plant has been interwoven in human history," Edwards says. "Our forefathers grew hemp and marijuana. And when you go into the propaganda, it leads straight into racism and so many other problems in our nation. This plant got wrapped up into all of that."

The War on Drugs, launched under Nixon and escalated under Reagan, supercharged enforcement with consequences that data found to disproportionately fall on Black and Latino communities. Even under reform of marijuana law, studies continue to show that Black Americans are arrested for cannabis possession at nearly four times the rate of white Americans, despite similar usage rates. In North Carolina, where marijuana was decriminalized in 1977, Black people were still 3.3 times more likely to be arrested by the numbers in 2018.

The DARE program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) brought a lot of the same messaging into schools beginning in 1983, cementing a generation's understanding of marijuana as a gateway drug and moral failing. I remember wearing my black t-shirt with bold red D.A.R.E. across the front, convinced that I’d need a strong backbone to decline the deluge of drug offerings I’d surely soon face after 5th grade. That idea coupled with the theory that pot is a gateway drug to more substance use and/or abuse left an impression on a generation.

"And because of how much generational propaganda went against this plant,” Edwards says, “anyone associated with it just got a stigma." 

Edwards pushes back on the gateway drug narrative, but admittedly started smoking at 14—too young, he says emphatically today. Much like alcohol or any other controlled substance, there’s context of when, where, how, and why behind use that matters.

 "You'd have to know my story and understand my childhood trauma,” he says. “My path was a whole lot different than the normal person's. And to that, it was because of mis-education and not knowing." 

Edwards has PTSD. He frames cannabis not as a cure but as a tool—one that allowed him to stop being controlled by his trauma so he could do the harder work of healing. "I've gotten to a point in my life where trauma doesn't control me. I'm out here, actually able to help and really make changes in people's lives."

That, more than anything, is what Queen Anne Suppliers is about. Edwards wants to educate customers and the curious  on terpenes, on dosing, on the difference between a synthetic and an organic product, on what the law actually allows. He's helping start the Responsible Cannabis Retailers of NC (RCRNC), a coalition of hemp shop owners and wholesalers pushing for local standards and legislation. Founded by Ben Erichson of Wilmington Dispensary, companies already in the RCRNC include:

Wilmington Dispensary

Delta Elevate

Carolina Pure

Police Industries

Cape Fear Gnomies

GreenRoom

BBXLG

Queen Annes Suppliers

Marlin Organics

As for Edwards, he's planning educational events at the shop. Think: "paint and puffs," community gatherings, and civic engagement around cannabis policy.

Edwards believes strongly in age limits, regulation and informed choice. What he doesn't believe is that the plant itself is the problem. "We live in a world full of poisons, including the food we eat," he says. "To me, [cannabis] is the lesser of so many evils. … If there’s a liquor store on the corner, I don't understand why I can't sell cannabis products. I grew up in the prescription era—where everyone's getting things [as easy as] water."

As of 2024, the legal cannabis market in the U.S. generates more than $30 billion in annual revenue. States that have legalized recreational marijuana—Colorado, California, Illinois, Michigan, among others—have collected billions in tax revenue that funds schools, infrastructure, and public health programs.

By the numbers, NC stands to lose a lot. As reported by Port City Daily in December 2025, a 2023 economic impact study on the state’s hemp industry estimated the sector supports nearly 9,000 jobs and generates between $759 million and $1.1 billion in annual sales, with the majority of revenue coming from hemp-derived cannabinoid products.

A 2025 peer-reviewed feasibility study from NC A&T State University, published in the Journal of Cannabis Research, modeled all three hemp production systems—floral, grain and fiber—against real North Carolina market conditions. All three showed positive returns under baseline scenarios. The barrier isn't necessarily the crop, but rather the missing infrastructure: NC lacks the processing capacity and pricing stability that would allow farmers to confidently invest. In the meantime, a global market projected to exceed $34 billion by 2034 is being captured by Canada, France and China—not by the state that once led the nation in tobacco and has the soil, growing season and farming knowledge to compete.

Edwards sees the tobacco connection (and corporate blockers) plainly. "If the big guys don't have a way to get in, no one gets in until they have a way to get in. Morally, I think a lot of people gave them so much pushback they didn't want to stick their neck out. But the demographics are changing."

North Carolina's tobacco-farming history, its existing agricultural infrastructure, and its research universities make it well-positioned to become a national leader in legal cannabis cultivation. And despite the progress the Farm Bill initially offered the industry, the new federal restrictions loom, and if nothing is done after the Farm Bill runs out in November 2026, hundreds of NC small businesses like Edwards’ face closure just as they’re getting started.

The Farm Bill reauthorization, whenever it arrives, will reshape the hemp market—potentially closing the THCA rule that currently allows shops like Queen Anne Suppliers to operate, or potentially create clearer federal pathways for a regulated market. Either way, something is coming.

In North Carolina, the legislature has repeatedly stalled on medical cannabis bills that had bipartisan support. But the calculus is changing. Demographic shifts — younger residents, transplants from legal-market states — are changing what the electorate looks like (well, not accounting for gerrymandering) and what it will tolerate. Multiple polls show majority support for legalization in North Carolina.

"Even if the Farm Bill gets shut down here, we're talking about putting a vote to the people for medical and recreation," Edwards says. "And I think at this point in time in our state, a lot of people are behind it. I think it would pass with flying colors. … We see it working all around the world and in our country, too. To me, the numbers make sense.”

In the meantime, Queen Anne Suppliers is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Follow Queen Anne Suppliers at @QueenAnneSuppliers_ILM for updates on the grand opening block party planned for June 20.