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Farmers in North Car- olina are likely to wake up Saturday morning with a new option for growing crops: Industrial hemp production is expected to become legal at the stroke of midnight. Lawmakers passed the legalization legislation in September, in the final days of the session. The proposal hadn't previously been made public, and some conservative groups worry that questions about the plant's connections to its cousin, marijuana, didn't get answered. The bill has been on Gov. Pat McCrory's desk for weeks, and unless he vetoes it, it will become law without his signature at midnight Friday. Lee Edwards of Sugar Hill Farms in Kinston is among the farmers eager to add industrial hemp to, their fields. "Hemp really gives us a crop during the summer- time that is a viable cash crop to us," he said. "We're in a perfect ge- ographical location for the production of hemp with our climate." Hemp hasn't been legal in North Carolina in part because of a stigma: The plant is a relative of mari- juana and looks similar. But hemp lacks much of the active ingredient that makes marijuana a recre- ational drug: Tetrahydro- cannabinol, or THC. To get high from indus- trial hemp,. Edwards said, "you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a tele- phone pole." Consuming enough hemp to feel any THC- related buzz also results in the equivalent of taking two to three doses of a high -fiber laxative, research has shown. The N.C. Sheriff's Asso- ciation supports the legis- lation because industrial hemp farmers would need • permit, administered by • new state Industrial $Hemp Commission under Legalization bill will become law unless McCrory vetoes Spring Hope has one of the only hemp processing plants in the country Supporters battle stigma: `We're for rope, not dope' federal rules. "Getting a permit would make it easy for law en- forcement to know where the legitimate growers were," association director Eddie Caldwell said. "If you don't have a permit, then the assumption is going to be it's the smok- ing kind. North Carolina is also home to one of the coun- try's only decortication plants, a facility that pro- cesses hemp to sell to textile manufacturers and other users. The multimil- lion- dollar plant is set to start production within months at a cavernous warehouse outside the tiny Nash County town of Spring Hope. Hemp, Inc., plans to eventually employ 200 people at the facility. It will initially process kenaf, a similar plant that's already legal, and shift to industrial hemp when farmers begin their first harvest. "There's a lot more products that I can make" using hemp than kenaf, said David. Schmitt, the company's chief operating officer. "Nobody wants to make a flag out of kenaf." In addition to its uses in fabrics,.paper and car parts, the oil extract from David Schmitt, of the Industrial Hemp Manufacturing Company in Spring Hope, sifts the product of processed kanaf at a facility set to also process industrial hemp. ............................................................................... ............................... How hemp is More than 25,000 products can be made from industrial hemp, according to the North American Industrial Hemp Council. Among them: e Recyclable paper Seeds and oil used in snack foods *Oil and natural gas drilling fluids e Car doors and other interior auto parts that would otherwise be made with plastics ® Oil spill absorbents e Hemp extract oils used to treat epilepsy. A bill signed by Gov. Pat McCrory in July allows neurologists to provide the oil to patients. industrial hemp can be used to treat epilepsy. A new North Carolina law, signed by McCrory in July, allows neurologists to dispense hemp, or CBD, oil to patients. Schmitt says his compa- ny plans to eventually produce the oil in Spring Hope and will donate some of the product to patients who couldn't otherwise afford it. `SIMPLY RUSHING' But not everyone is cheering. Rev. Mark Creech of the conservative Christian Action League worries hemp could ulti- mately lead to marijuana legalization in the state. "What does this mean when farmers are able to grow industrial hemp and they get used to the prof- its, and then they start to think of the profits they