By Stephen Smoot
About a decade ago, before being stricken down by the courts, federal level actions under President Barack Obama posed a near death threat to the operation of a number of farms in West Virginia.
Now, under Congressional legislation passed to end the federal government shutdown, a Mountain State farm and its growing and thriving business may be almost completely shut down.
In a move typical in Congress, a last minute amendment (Section 781) was placed in the mammoth bill passed to end the government shutdown. Often, bills that would face strong opposition and/or would face likely rejection get slipped into the overall legislation before legislative directors or assistants have a chance to catch it and alert the elected officials to their presence.
If not overturned by legislation by Nov 13, 2026, the thriving hemp industry in the United States could face the banning of its most popular products, including those used for non addictive pain relief. The legislation bans the sale of hemp products with more than 0.4 milligrams of total delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, known better as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Currently, the limit is 0.38 by dry weight. The new limit effectively bans products by imposing impossible levels on them, even those used for pain relief. Making the regulation apply to the total by package, rather than recommended dose, also serves as an effective means to eliminate its sale.
Furthermore, producers cannot even grow the plants needed to produce CBD without THC because the new law would make the growing of the plant themselves illegal.
Macie Queen and her sister Riley never put thought into farming as they grew up on the family land in Upshur County. As Macie Queen described “we had gardens with tomatoes, strawberries, all the fun stuff.” She added that favorite times included canning with the sisters’ grandmother.
Though their parents owned land with agricultural potential, “we weren’t using the land for farming. It was not operational.”
All of that changed in 2018 when the Farm Bill signed by President Donald Trump legalized the growth of low-THC hemp plants without regulation on the amount of THC that could come from products derived from hemp. This specific action had strong support from both Republicans and Democrats and fulfilled its purpose in laying the groundwork for a new and profitable industry.
Legalization of hemp recognized the long history of hemp in America, both in terms of hemp strains brought from Europe and also those used by American Indians prior to settlement. By 1620, every farmer in the colony of Virginia was required to grow the crop due to its many industrial and other uses. When Mount Vernon, the family farm of George Washington, could not support the growth of tobacco, Virginia’s dominant cash crop, he turned to hemp, corn, and anything else that would grow there. The ropes of American sailing ships used during the War of Independence used tough fibrous hemp.
According to WVU Magazine from a decade ago, “historically a staple in the manufacture of fibrous products like rope and clothing, hemp is used in oils for foods and toiletries and has newer uses in graphene for battery production and in building materials that are more eco-friendly than concrete.”
Queen also praised the “excellent relationship we have had with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture here. They are on hemp’s side.” She added that a number of area farmers and others with expertise spent time mentoring and advising them on how to best grow it in area conditions.
The hemp growing operation opened in 2019 with a business model to produce oil in bulk and the Queen sisters found themselves tending to 15,000 plants “with little to no farming experience.” This led to the scale of the crop outstripping the ability to effectively process it. “Then the bulk market got saturated and COVID hit,” shared Queen.
Undaunted by challenges, the sisters did what any more experienced business owners would do. They pivoted to the craft market, forming an e commerce business that mainly catered to family, friends, and a gradually expanding word-of-mouth reputation among Mountain State consumers. The hemp crop shrank to a more manageable 3,000 plants.
Though very closely related genetically, hemp plants and marijuana are separate plants. Hemp plants have a miniscule amount of THC, less than 0.3 percent, whereas marijuana has levels between five and 30 percent. Marijuana is psychoactive, or intoxicating, while hemp cannot produce a “high.” That said, they are close enough to interbreed. No hemp farm would welcome the presence of growing marijuana as it would taint their own strains of plants
They did have one important mind to change in the course of establishing their business on family land. Queen shared “my Dad is a retired police officer and he was a little resistant at first. Then he could see what we saw and now he is our biggest supporter.”
The Queens also refined their production process as they gained experience. Seedlings take form in greenhouses until April, when the sisters transplant them into open fields until harvesting in October.
Then in 2022 came the fortunate break of exposure. A Washington Post reporter discovered their farm-to-online business and published a feature on the sisters and their growing business. It was entitled “At Moon Flower, a hemp business run by three generations of Appalachian women, business is blooming.”
“When that story hit, things skyrocketed for us,” said Queen. “That’s when we opened up the headquarters in Buckhannon.” Products expanded into a number of fields.
As of January 2025, Moon Flower’s drink selections appeared on the shelves of 50 different stores across West Virginia. Like some craft alcohol distilleries in Pendleton and Berkeley counties, they control the production from soil to shop, raising their own raw materials from which to create beverages for adult consumption and purpose.
Last year, Moon Flower stood poised to break into major markets after inking a deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, among the largest distributors of adult beverages in the United States. As alcohol consumption continues to decline across the United States, many who have predominated in beer, wine, and liquor distribution have added cannabis-based drinks to their selections.
The Queens’ “Moon Brews” will soon be one of them. But for how long?
Macie and Riley Queen saw this as their example of building the American Dream almost from scratch, bringing a business into existence, nurturing its growth, taking pride in its achievements and overcoming of setbacks. Discouragement comes from the possibility of “being shut down before we are able to flourish.”
But the Queens do not oppose all regulations on their products. In fact, they vocally support laws for age verification and product transparency, among other issues. “We know there are bad actors out there” creating and selling “sketchy” products, said Queen. She also supports “transparency” regulations that require producers to share what goes into the products.
They oppose sweeping regulations that are “eliminating companies doing everything right.”
The same Congress whose actions threaten hemp products may ride in to rescue them. Representative Nancy Mace, a firebrand Republican from South Carolina, has introduced a bill to repeal Section 781 in the “American Hemp Protection Act of 2025. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California) have signed as co-sponsors. Massie and Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) tried to remove the clause from the bill to end the shutdown, but few wished to continue the shutdown which, by that point, had resulted in suspended food stamp distribution and a number of other problems.
Mace cited 320,000 jobs and a $28.4 billion industry, plus $1.5 billion in state tax revenues, as well as the freedom on entrepreneurship, as reasons to repeal Section 781. She blasted “prohibitionists” who “slipped this provision into a must-pass government funding bill.”
As far as the Queens are concerned, this legislation would put their American Dream back on track and allow them to continue offering a “safe, legal, and transparent” selection of products.
