Abundant Labs CEO Chip Miller looked like a college chemistry professor as he started drawing diagrams and compound percentages on the blackboard while trying to explain what it is the new enterprise is doing in Canton.

The Abundant Labs partners announced this summer they would be opening the $12 million state-of-the-art hemp processing facility inside the NEO Corporation building off I-40 in Canton and has now been in production for a month. 

Hemp has only been legal in North Carolina for a couple of years, but already the plant is presenting an issue in the criminal justice system that the legislature is still trying to iron out. 

Three years ago, few people had heard of cannabidiol (CBD). Now, it’s popular with all demographics. It’s even being used with cats and dogs. With an abundance of information floating around and a slew of products on the market, Kim Ferguson of Kim’s Pharmacy offers clarification and suggestions regarding CBD oil. 

Jeanine Davis has spent more than two decades researching new and emerging crops in North Carolina, but she’s never experienced anything like the hype surrounding hemp. 

“I’ve always gotten a disproportionately large number of inquiries just because there aren’t a large number of people across the country that work with the crops I work with,” said Davis. “Taking on hemp has taken it to a whole new level.”

With the recent actions of Michigan and Vermont, 72 million people in 10 U.S. states — 23 percent of the population — can now purchase recreational marijuana in a retail setting, after decades of strict prohibition and despite a lingering federal ban. 

North Carolina isn’t one of those states, but it soon could be if a recent trend towards the legalization of recreational marijuana continues. 

Despite pages and pages of published studies and hundreds or thousands of anecdotes extolling the benefits of cannabidiol, it’s the word stem — “canna” — that still raises eyebrows as much as the plant stem. 

To the traditional topics of a legislative town hall meeting — economic development, fake news and even the morality of abortion — was added a new topic last week that could signal an upcoming legislative push on the equally controversial topic of medical cannabis products in North Carolina.

Brendan Bishop is more than just the manager of Haywood Vapor, located at the corner of Dellwood City Road and Russ Avenue in Waynesville.