John Boccella began researching hemp-based products as a local chiropractor. He had a patient who had seizures, and he thought cannabidiol, or CBD, could give her some relief. He began selling CBD products out of his chiropractor office in 2017.
"People were coming from all over to get CBD products from me," he said. "That's when my wife and I decided we should open a retail store."
That led to the The Hemp Company, owned and operated by Boccella and his wife, Carol. They opened their first store off Falls of Neuse Road in Raleigh in 2019 and a second store in Wake Forest in 2022. Their stores feature a variety of hemp derived CBD and THC products. Now, he says, a new definition of hemp added to the federal funding bill to reopen the government last fall — referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — will kill his business and North Carolina's hemp industry.
"It was really a wolf in sheep's clothing," Boccella said. "They were selling it to Congress as this is good for the industry, and this is good for the consumer, and this is going to protect children, and none of that is true."
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