Texas Senate passes hemp ban, a Dan Patrick priority

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The Texas Senate on Wednesday passed a state ban on all forms of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, advancing a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to crack down on the state’s booming consumable hemp market six years after lawmakers inadvertently permitted its rise.

Senate Bill 3 — which Patrick called among his “top five” bills over his 17 years in the Legislature — would outlaw products with any amount of THC, ranging from gummies and beverages to vapes and flower buds, which are currently sold at more than 8,300 locations around the state. Current Texas law allows hemp-derived products that contain less than 0.3% of THC.

"Kids are getting poisoned today," Patrick said in the Senate chamber as the vote neared.

He used similar language Wednesday morning. “This is a poison in our public, and we as a Legislature — our No. 1 responsibility is life and death issues,” Patrick said at a morning news conference, alongside members of law enforcement and advocates for families who saw loved ones develop behavioral health problems after consuming supposedly-legal THC products. “We’re going to ban your stores before we leave here, for good.”

The vote was 24 to 7.

“I believe this bill goes too far, in that it would put out of business the consumable hemp industry in Texas,” state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin said during debate of the bill, arguing that concerns related to sale of low-THC products should be addressed through stronger regulations.

The Texas House has yet to consider its hemp proposal, House Bill 28, which would impose stricter oversight and licensing requirements for the hemp industry rather than ban THC altogether. If the House passes its proposal, the two chambers would have to reconcile their differences before the legislation could become law.

State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the lead author of SB 3, said that the Senate and the House were “philosophically aligned” and that there was time to work out any policy differences.

“We’re all on the same page,” Patrick said, adding that he had spoken about the issue with House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, and Gov. Greg Abbott. “We’re going to protect the people of Texas from THC.”

Patrick also had a message aimed directly at retailers: “You might want to voluntarily close your doors, because the investigations are going to continue, and I’m sure the lawsuits are about to come,” he said on Wednesday. “You know what you're doing.”

The hemp industry lobbied fiercely against a total prohibition on THC, urging lawmakers to instead impose “thoughtful regulations,” such as restricting THC sales to Texans 21 and older, requiring tamper-proof packaging and barring sales within a certain distance of schools.

Mark Bordas, executive director of the Texas Hemp Business Council, said that lawmakers were conflating consumable hemp, which, by legal definition, has a low concentration of THC, with higher potency marijuana.

Certain bad actors are “operating in the black market, in the shadows,” he said, arguing that the state needed greater oversight of the industry as a whole to block those manufacturers and retailers — rather than a total prohibition.

“We have a common enemy. We know who’s doing wrong,” Bordas said. “We’d both like to eliminate them, but the problem is, the lieutenant governor and Senator Perry are going to eliminate the entire business — including over 7,000 licensed dispensaries.”

The industry also highlighted roughly 50,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue that would be lost if lawmakers quashed the hemp market entirely. And critics argued that instead of addressing public health concerns, a ban would push consumers into an unregulated black market, easing access to more potent products.

“Bans don’t work,” Bordas said, a point that was echoed on the Senate floor by state Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio. “All it’s going to do is encourage the bad actors to fill the vacuum.”

Still, he said that the industry believed “cooler heads will prevail” in the House.

Thousands of cannabis retailers have popped up across the state since 2019, when the Republican-controlled Legislature approved the sale of consumable hemp. That law, which was passed one year after hemp was legalized nationwide, was intended to boost Texas agriculture by allowing the commercialization of hemp containing trace amounts of non-intoxicating delta-9 THC, the psychoactive element in marijuana.

What followed was an explosion of consumable hemp products, which are barred from containing more than a 0.3% concentration of THC.

Products with a higher concentration are classified as marijuana, which remains outlawed in Texas aside from limited medical uses. Still, hemp-derived products look, taste and sometimes have intoxicating effects similar to their more potent counterparts.

Perry, who led the 2019 bill to legalize hemp, said that lawmakers had not meant to usher in such a large market. On Wednesday, he accused the hemp industry of exploiting a loophole in the 2019 law and making their products easily accessible to young people.

“This is changing people’s lives in short order, because it’s been marketed as something that is safe and legal, and it’s anything but,” Perry said. “This is not the pot of yesterday. This is stuff that will change lives forever.”

Supporters of the ban said high-potency products are already being sold at retailers, despite purporting to be under the legal limit. Steve Dye, chief of the Allen police department in north Texas, said that undercover investigations in his city had found and tested products with up to a 78% THC concentration.

“Most people think that if you walk into a store and you’re able to buy something from a retail establishment, it must be legal and it must be safe,” he said on Wednesday. “With these THC consumables, neither is true. Intentional mislabeling on many products have led to accidental overdoses and increased addiction.”

State and federal law currently place inconsistent testing requirements and no age limits on Texas’ hemp industry.

SB 3 would continue to allow the non-intoxicating, non-psychoactive cannabidiol known as CBD, while placing firmer restrictions on those products — including barring sales and marketing to those under 21 and requiring “tamper-evident, child-resistant, and resealable” product packaging.

Some patients and doctors say the THC in cannabis can be used effectively to combat pain, depression, anxiety, appetite problems and nausea. Under the state’s Compassionate Use Program, lawmakers have allowed some Texans to use medical marijuana to treat conditions including epilepsy, seizures, autism, cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some veterans groups told the Senate committee that advanced SB 3 this month that they prefer using the more affordable and accessible THC products sold at everyday retailers like smoke shops and gas station convenience stores. Others said that it would be expensive to properly regulate the industry, and warned that unlike under Texas’ Compassionate Use Program, Texans reaching for retail products did not have the benefit of medical supervision and oversight.

At the same time, the hemp industry has “overwhelming advantages” over the state program, according to Jervonne Singletary, senior director of government relations at Goodblend, one of three medical marijuana providers in the state. Patients have to jump through so many hoops to place and receive orders that some may opt to simply pick up THC products at a nearby retail outlet, she said.

On Wednesday, Patrick vowed to “expand” the Compassionate Use Program and continue investing in mental health care across the state.

SB 1505, also led by Perry, would allow medical marijuana providers to operate satellite storage facilities designed to make it easier for patients to fill their prescriptions, and it would double the cap on licensed medical marijuana dispensers from three to six.

“This is not a political or partisan issue,” Patrick said. “This is about saving lives.”

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