The newly painted building in Cary is hard to miss. It's bright white and green and sits on a road with heavy traffic. The perfect spot for a new business hoping to get some attention.

"We wanted to create a place for health and wellness where people can get a different type of product," said Roland Jones, owner of The Hemp Boutique of Cary.

The shop is in its first days of business. In fact, the grand opening is scheduled for mid-January.

"We get a lot of people just coming and asking questions and wanting to know what is this thing called hemp and what does it do for your body," Jones said.

The Hemp Boutique of Cary sells everything from pills to coffee to cbd oil -- all products derived from hemp and all promising natural health benefits.

There used to be some confusion about these products -- mainly about which were legal and which were not. Recent federal legislation has cleared a lot of that up. Hemp was removed from the controlled substance list, meaning it is now federally legal.

"That's going to make more stores and more competition," said Jones.

Other WRAL Top Stories


Marc Lewis has been studying the growing industry as the editor of Remedy Review, a website in Raleigh that's hoping to be a sort of watchdog.

"There's a lot of good information out there. There's also a lot of bad information," Lewis said. "We are just trying to add a measured voice to that space."

Remedy Review sent 30 products to a lab to test for label accuracy; they plan to publish the results early this year. There's so much demand for this information that Remedy Review had no trouble finding funding. Local firm One Better Ventures pumped $2 million into the project.


"You take North Carolina's agricultural background and this can be an amazing crop. Mark this space, it's going to be a very big market," said John Replogle, a partner at One Better Ventures.

Jones hopes that's true. He said he's been using hemp products since they helped with a backache several years ago and now he's ready to try to sell the product -- and the hype -- to his customers.

"It's a good feeling," he said. "A little bit of nervousness, too, because we are just starting the business out. It's exciting."