RALEIGH — As flu season approaches, doctors fear more young adults will die of vaping-related illnesses.

RALEIGH — When a patient’s lungs began to fail, doctors had no ready explanation — until they read media reports of vaping-related illnesses.

RALEIGH — Doctors expect more people to die of vaping-related illnesses in North Carolina.

The “Great Vape Scare of 2019” is well underway, as more than 380 people have been diagnosed with a severe lung condition that has been traced back to the use of e-cigarettes and THC vaping devices. So far, seven people have died as a result. But governments rush to ban vape products that may or may not be responsible for causing the damage.

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s farm bill has passed the House, but it now may be frozen in the Senate. 

RALEIGH — The future of smokable hemp in North Carolina remains unsettled, nearly a month after lawmakers last took it up.

RALEIGH — Workers meander through green rows of plants, glancing sideways as they go and dipping their brimmed caps against the setting sun. A white Chevy pickup stops at the top of the slope, and farmer Shane Whitaker jumps out and walks among the crops.

RALEIGH — Todd Smith was out of town one Saturday when he got an unnerving phone call.

It was from a few friends who were running his CBD store, Top Hat Tobacco and Cigars, in Anderson County, South Carolina. Local law enforcement officials had entered the store, saying they needed to test his products for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — the psychoactive compound in marijuana that produces a chemical high.

WILSON — A bill in the N.C. legislature that would ban smokable hemp could undercut North Carolina’s emerging hemp industry and curtail immediate relief for those suffering chronic conditions.

RALEIGH — Andrew Ross, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan, in January was working private security for a cross-country delivery of hemp. Ross’s task was simple: Guard a truckload of state-approved industrial hemp, grown in Kentucky, and bound for Colorado.