Asheville-born campaign turns Washington's moving hemp clock into 40 days and 40 nights of music, art, education, hospitality and public conversation — culminating Dec. 11 at The Orange Peel.
On Sept. 1, a digital billboard across from the Canton Post Office will light up with three words: BILLY LOVES WILLIE. Underneath them: STARTWITHILOVEYOU.COM. No product. No candidate. No explanation. For 14 days, that is all Western North Carolina gets.
The billboard is the first clue in THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, a national cultural campaign beginning in Asheville on Halloween night and unfolding for 40 days and 40 nights around one real American question: What happens when the government changes the rules around an industry created by an act of Congress?
In 2018, Congress removed qualifying hemp from federal controlled-substance law, and a national marketplace followed. Farmers planted. Companies invested. Products were developed. Consumers adopted them. In many states, hemp-derived THC drinks, gummies and other products moved into restaurants, bars, liquor stores, festivals and mainstream culture.
Congress has since enacted a narrower federal definition of hemp scheduled to take effect Nov. 12, 2026. Under that framework, many intoxicating products legally sold under today's hemp rules would no longer qualify as federal hemp in their present form.
That does not mean all hemp becomes illegal. Industrial hemp remains expressly included. CBD, fiber, grain, non-intoxicating products and other hemp products involve different facts and formulations. Federal and state laws are also separate questions.
The clock may also move. On Aug. 8, the U.S. Senate passed legislation containing a temporary provision that would hold back most of the federal change until Dec. 11, while allowing certain exclusions involving cannabinoids that cannot be naturally produced by cannabis to proceed in November.
As of Aug. 23, that provision had not become law and still required House approval and the president's signature. Nov. 12 therefore remained the enacted federal date.
That uncertainty is not a footnote to The Final Countdown. It is the plot. The campaign will use Dec. 11 — the date in the Senate-passed proposal — as its planned public DAY ZERO while updating the clock whenever Washington changes the facts.
“This isn't a weed rally, a trade show, a sermon or a funeral. It's a revival tent with a sound system. Congress legalized hemp, Americans built real businesses and communities around it, and now Washington is changing the rules — and possibly the date of the rule change. You could not invent a better countdown.”
“The rules may change. The plant will still grow here. So we're going to start with 'I love you,' put everyone in the same room, understand what the hell is happening and have some fun while the clock runs.”
The Canton billboard begins a public mystery that will unfold in chapters throughout September and October. Nobody involved will explain what it means. Asked directly, Rose says only that the sentence belongs to whoever is reading it.
“Billy Loves Willie isn't a punchline. It's a possibility.”
“We are not going to settle it for you. That argument is the forty days.”
The billboard does not advertise a product or tell people what to think. It asks them to remain curious long enough for the larger conversation to begin.
The physical campaign opens Oct. 31 along Asheville's Haywood Road corridor, with Franny's Farmacy serving as a central community partner alongside neighboring music, art and hospitality spaces.
The Final Countdown is not 40 giant events. The space itself is the event. For 40 days, it will remain alive as a listening room, classroom, gallery, cultural lounge, community table and documentary set.
Daytime programming will range from hemp and pets to farming, wellness, science, food and plant medicine. Nights will feature vinyl, listening sessions, artist releases, live performances, humor and conversation.
Any age-restricted product experience will occur only where legally permissible and under applicable venue rules. Nobody has to agree before entering. That is the point.
Each day will begin with one understandable question:
Every question will produce a public conversation and a piece of national content: an interview, performance, portrait, explainer, comedy segment or documentary dispatch. Music will be structural — not background entertainment — with a planned architecture of 40 songs, 40 artists and 40 stories.
North Carolina will serve as the campaign's first policy laboratory, with federal and state rules explained separately. Texas will be examined through verified public records and firsthand accounts as a case study in what can happen when policy changes quickly.
A nonpartisan action hub will let people examine source documents, identify their elected representatives, share their own stories and communicate in their own words.
Asheville is the mothership, but it is not the boundary. The campaign will release a simple toolkit allowing communities anywhere to create their own chapter:
Local chapters can bring together musicians, artists, farmers, educators, businesses and community members while explaining their own state and local policies. Their stories will feed into the national campaign and documentary archive.
“This is built to travel. A venue in Austin, Nashville, Detroit, Denver — or a town nobody in Washington has ever visited — should be able to join tomorrow. The American law creates the clock, but the conversation belongs to everyone.”
Whatever happens politically becomes the ending.
The Dec. 11 finale at The Orange Peel is titled WE SAVED THE LAST ROACH. The final-night gathering is planned to include an acoustic set featuring Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix and his son, alongside Kenny McCormick IV and additional guests. The appearance is an acoustic performance, not a full-band Papa Roach concert.
WE SAVED THE LAST ROACH is presented by Spiritual Plants and Past N9NE. Sponsors include RAW, Pure Beauty, CLEA Midlife, Franny's Farmacy and Stereo Flower.
Final artist, age, ticketing and event information will be announced at StartWithILoveYou.com. A charitable campaign component involving the Asheville-area Hollow Bone Initiative is also being developed, with details to be announced separately.
Rose — who spent two decades in ministry under the name Craig Gross — previously created ASCENSION, a temporary cultural space on Abbot Kinney in Venice that combined music, artists, technology, light, sound, cannabis, spirituality and conversation. He is also known for creating Jesus Loves Porn Stars, an outreach designed to bring people from radically different worlds into the same room.
The Final Countdown carries that cultural-space model into a real moment in American history. No partisan team. No panic. No declaration that “hemp is dying.” Just a plant, a country, a moving clock and one question: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
“We legalized it. We built an industry. We created jobs. We put it in bars. We taxed it. Now we're not sure. That's the government, basically. And while they figure it out, we're going to party until the clock hits zero.”
The Final Countdown is a 40-day, nonpartisan cultural campaign based in Asheville, North Carolina. Through music, art, education, hospitality, humor, spirituality and community, it examines the changing federal treatment of intoxicating hemp-derived products and the people, businesses and communities affected by it.
The campaign provides public education and cultural programming, not legal advice. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any political party. StartWithILoveYou.com
MEDIA CONTACT: Craig Rose (formerly Craig Gross) · craig@spiritualplants.com
Interviews with Craig Rose, Asheville site visits, photography and campaign assets available on request. Nothing on this page is embargoed.