RALEIGH, N.C. [WTVD] -- Changes around the way North Carolina regulates cannabis and cannabis products could be on the way.
On Wednesday, Gov. Josh Stein announced a new council of lawmakers, doctors, law enforcement officers, and prosecutors tasked with ensuring the safety of those products and making sure kids don't have access to them. While recreational marijuana is not legal in North Carolina, many products containing THC and THC derivatives are available at gas stations and vape shops.
"This stuff is not safe. There's a lot of THC and unknown ingredients in it, and it's a danger to our public," said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone, one of the people tapped for the Governor's council.
For Stone, the decision to join the group was an easy one.
"Obviously, when the Governor calls you and asks you to do something like that -- you're gonna do it," he said.
Stone is one of nearly two dozen people participating on the advisory board, with a goal of better regulating products like THC-A, Delta 8, Delta 9, and hemp products.
The Governor's office told ABC11 that any conversation about recreational legalization of cannabis for adults in North Carolina would need to start with the conversations this council is having. Stone doesn't support going that far.
"We've got too many toxins in the community now. I think that you can find other types of things to do instead of using marijuana, and anything that you're smoking cannot be good for your lungs," he said.
Still, news of the council was met with excitement from advocates pushing for recreational legalization in the state.
"It's a long time coming, and we certainly hope that this will bear fruit," said Ann Caughran, a Charlotte-based volunteer with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.
Caughran has worked with NORML for years, and believes adults should be free to choose whether or not to use cannabis -- and that the best way to do that safely is to let the government regulate it.
"They have to go through an extensive testing process, and that is certainly far safer than, you know, what we're seeing here on the shelves. I don't see any signs of a regulated testing process," she said.
Any changes to state law around cannabis could also have major impacts on the legal system in North Carolina -- a topic that Stein says the council will explore.
"With the legalization of marijuana, what we will find is that it will minimize the touch of law enforcement in many communities that are already overpoliced," said Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director of Emancipate NC.
Blagrove says Emancipate NC has already launched its own effort to help people charged with lower-level weed crimes.
"So that we can narrow the flow of people into the criminal justice system, especially for things that are unnecessary, like personal use of a cannabis product," she said.
North Carolina is currently one of 11 states in the US without laws protecting medical or recreational use of cannabis.
