Decatur hemp business closing ahead of new law going into effect Tuesday

DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — The Green Plug, a hemp company based in Decatur, will shut its doors for the final time on Sunday ahead of a new hemp law going into effect Tuesday.

The Green Plug owner Thomas Wright said when the owners opened the store in April they knew they were taking a risk. A couple of bills regulating hemp had been proposed in the Alabama legislature meaning regulation was likely coming.

“We kind of compared them, we thought they would go with the common sense bill, that wasn’t the bill they chose,” Wright said. “We took a little gamble and we thought we’d be alright, turned out we weren’t.”

Wright said because of the new restrictions, the store would be forced to cut too much of the products that bring in the most revenue. Instead of trying to find suppliers that make products that would fall under compliance with the new Alabama law, the owners decided to pack up the store and go elsewhere.

“You have to swap out complete products, if you can even find companies that can cater to these products,” Wright said. “Leaders here in Alabama think these companies just have Alabama specific packaging sitting around and like a lot of companies are just going to look at it like its not worth their time or financial to make the pivot.”

Wright has owned similar businesses in other states but he said he has never seen anything like the situation in Alabama. He believes that if Alabamians had the opportunity to vote on the issue, that a majority would be okay with the products being sold.

“It’s unfortunate that the politicians are acting on their own interest rather than the interest of the public,” Wright said. “It’s going to be a lot of lost revenue.”

Wright said that he can understand the need to regulate hemp products, but the new law is overreach.

“Alabama just made this one of the most restrictive hemp states in the United States,” Wright said. “I understand that there’s definitely flaws and definitely changes that need to get made to the state.”

According to Wright, a lot of the customers coming into The Green Plug deal with issues like anxiety, sleep and pain management. Wright said that while the business can just pick up and head to another state, customers can’t find the products anywhere in Alabama — Not safely at least.

“If we haven’t learned anything about the drug war by now, we would learn that it doesn’t work, and people aren’t just going to not use these products, they are going to find a way to get their hands on it,” Wright said.