Updated October 8, 2018

Mt. Pleasant is now home to the county’s first hemp shop, and its owners want to set an example for the new agricultural industry, starting with their own community.

Commonly referred to as CBD, it’s a cannabis compound that lacks the psychoactive ingredient THC, found in illegal cannabis plants.

The shop marks the first step into the retail environment for the two entrepreneurs, who for the past three years have been growing industrial cannabis for the whole sale market out of their Maury County home.

The state’s first hemp dispensaries opened in June of this year in Chattanooga and Murfreesboro, and now more than a dozen are open in the state. All of the plants grown legally within the state are done so under strict supervision of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Mt. Pleasant was once the home of a bustling hemp industry led by Lucius Polk and his 50,000-acre hemp farm, which is now seeing a return of the controversial plant.

They say the new industry will also give farmers a chance to move from tobacco crops and offers the possibility of growing hemp.