Texas THC ban: The fight over hemp's future and a multibillion-dollar industry at stake

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3 days ago

When patrons step into Planet K on Guadalupe Street, about a mile north of the University of Texas, it's immediately clear what its primary business is. Shelves fixed against the store's vibrant green walls are filled with a diverse array of consumable hemp products, most containing THC: gummies, vapes, infused beverages, smokable flowers, and accessories such as bongs, pipes and rolling papers.
Those shelves may soon look dramatically different after the Texas Legislature last week passed a bill that would ban all products containing THC, potentially delivering a costly blow to the state's booming cannabis industry.
If Gov. Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 3 into law, Planet K's shelves come September would be limited to selections of nicotine products, such as pouches, cigarettes and some leaf tobacco, as well as counter-culture wearable buttons, T-shirts and sex toys.
SB 3, which would ban all THC products in Texas, makes exceptions only for hemp containing non-psychoactive compounds such as CBD and CBG. The measure was spearheaded by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a three-term Republican who presides over the Texas Senate and has described the legislation a "life and death issue." Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, authored the bill.
Some medical professionals, including a pediatrician spokesperson for the Texas Medical Association, share Patrick's concern that many potent THC products are too accessible to minors and those whose brains are still developing, a process the National Institutes of Health says may extend into a person's mid-to-late 20s.
'I've been a pediatrician for over 15 years, and there's a drastic difference with these new high-potency hemp-derived products sold at vape shops,' the TMA spokesperson said.
That pediatrician and her colleagues report a rise in Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) and Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS) — both of which are linked to early and chronic high-potency use. According to the Cleveland Clinic, those who use cannabis before age 18 are four to seven times more likely to develop CUD, while CHS can cause recurring vomiting in long-term users.
Since 2019, when Texas lawmakers legalized hemp production and retail, the legal age for consuming products with low levels of THC has been 21 in Texas. Patrick, 75, who previously alleged some shops were selling consumable hemp to minors, was seen on security footage being asked for identification at a store in Austin in March.
Opponents of SB 3 have advocated for tighter regulation of THC products, but Patrick has remained steadfast in pushing for an outright ban.
'We can't regulate it,' Patrick told NewsNation. 'We don't have enough police to check every store, when there are 8,000-9,000 of them. … To put it into perspective, we only have 1,100 McDonald's in the state of Texas; 1,300 Starbucks in the state of Texas. So, there are eight times more smoke shops selling this poison.'
Just minutes into a news conference Patrick held at the Capitol on Wednesday, the lieutenant governor tossed a bag of THC-infused cereal bites to a reporter, after asking if anyone wanted some, before making clear his opposition wasn't limited to underage use.
'We don't want adults to have this either,' Patrick said, holding up a different bag of infused cereal bites. 'What are you? Crazy? You want to go home and eat a bag of this tonight and see if you're here tomorrow?
"We don't want anybody buying anything off the shelf that could kill them or ruin their mental state for the rest of their lives.'
Patrick also claimed shoppers have no idea what ingredients were in the THC products that he displayed at the news conference. But Hometown Hero ATX, which makes the cereal bites Patrick threw to a reporter, fired back on X, saying the lieutenant governor 'blatantly lied on multiple occasions' about its products.
'If you turn it (the package) over, you'll find a full ingredients list as well as nutritional information and a certificate of analysis on every product,' the brand posted.
But it was a legislative loophole, not an influx of bad actors, that drove Texas' booming cannabis market.
In 2019, a law sponsored by Perry legalized the production, manufacturing and sale of hemp in Texas while approving consumable products with up to 0.3% THC, the primary psychoactive component in the cannabis plant. However, other intoxicating hemp derivatives such as THCa, Delta-8 THC and Delta-10 THC — compounds that can produce a "high" when heated or processed — inadvertently were legalized for sale and consumption.
'You would think that they (those concerned about the public's safety) would want it to go the other way,' said a Planet K employee. 'If they legalize it, then they can regulate it, and then you can figure out what is in them, and not just say 'proprietary THC blend.''
Since then, more than 8,000 retailers, including Planet K and its 17 locations in Central Texas, now sell THC products in Texas. As a result, the state's hemp business has grown like a weed, employing 53,000 people and having an estimated economic impact of $10 billion, according to Austin Monthly.
While some businesses, such as gas stations, convenience stores and some vape shops, will be able to withstand the ban, many others, like dispensaries and apothecaries, will likely be forced to close.
Brothers Todd and Mickey Harris, owners of the Happy Cactus Apothecary in South Austin, the same shop in which Patrick was carded, believe the legislation would 'effectively shut down our business' and hurt the local economy.
'It mainly affects small, Texas-based, family-owned businesses,' Todd Harris said. 'It won't affect those huge companies that have a few shops in Texas but have shops all over. They'll just move all their money to other states, which will then take more money away from the commerce here in Texas.'
All four states that border Texas have legal cannabis in some form. New Mexico's billion-dollar legal market brought in $32.7 million from its 12% excise tax in fiscal year 2024, while Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana have medicinal markets, with the latter also having decriminalized the drug.
Estella Castro, who owns Austinite Cannabis Co. on East Cesar Chavez Street, also owns two locations in Southern Oklahoma and anticipates a boom in business for any smoke shops in the states bordering Texas.
Within Texas' borders, the economic impact of the hemp industry extends far beyond the state's progressive cities, as many hemp farmers, some of whom live in Perry's West Texas district, are facing a threat to their livelihoods.
'Charles Perry says he has an open-door policy. That is an absolute lie,' Ann Gauger, co-owner of Caprock Family Farms in Lubbock, told the Texas Tribune. 'We've gone to his office in Austin, but he refuses to see us.
'We wouldn't be in the hemp business in a million years if they hadn't passed that bill. Now we're one of the largest hemp producers in the U.S., and their ban is going to shut that down.'
Some farmers don't grow the drought-resistant crop to be used for cannabis products, as the plant has many industrial purposes, such as textile production, but farmers and Katharine Harris, a fellow in drug policy at Rice University, contend that legal hemp production without traces of THC is impossible.
'There are thousands of cannabinoids in the hemp plant, many of them non-impairing,' she said. 'Chemistry experts testified during the State Affairs Committee hearing that this language will make manufacturing and testing of remaining legal products nearly impossible.'
Perry disagrees with this argument, maintaining that SB 3 doesn't interfere with industrial hemp production allowed under federal law.
'If you're under compliance with the federal law and you're doing stuff for fiber and stock and production for those other products that we hope to do, you didn't get affected by this,' Perry said at a news conference Wednesday. 'But if you're doing hemp that ultimately ended up as a Delta-8 (product) or Delta-10 (product), you're out of business, and you should be.'
The potential ban comes after years of scientific study suggesting medicinal benefits of cannabinoids for many people, from veterans to cancer patients to insomniacs. A year-long peer-reviewed study published by the academic journal Frontiers of Molecular Neuroscience found that veterans exhibiting post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms who used cannabis were 2.57 times more likely to no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD during the study period compared with non-users.
Anecdotally, Castro and the Harris brothers maintain that a large portion of their customer base consists of older individuals seeking relief, rather than a high.
'Our clientele is pretty expansive, but I'd say most of them are looking for help with sleep, chronic pain or PTSD,' said Mickey Harris, a former massage therapist who as a smoke shop owner has become knowledgeable about cannabis compounds. 'We have a pretty large 55 (years old) and up clientele base.'
Castro told the American-Statesman in April that she has seen many senior citizens and veterans 'stock buying' consumable hemp products in anticipation of SB 3 becoming law.
'It's terrible to have somebody thinking that (these products) are going to go away and they're on a fixed income, and they have to budget that gummy or that tincture in there,' Castro said, noting the shop has been giving some veterans discounts.
For Kaymon Thomas, who has worked at Planet K for a decade, his job is about providing an affordable solution to customers' ailments.
'We always make a joke that we're kind of underpaid therapists,' Thomas said. 'They'll tell us all their problems, and it's like, 'Maybe try this.' Sometimes they come back and say, 'That helped a lot,' which is cool.'
In an effort to grease the wheels for one of his biggest legislative priorities, Patrick brokered a deal on Sunday with Rep. Tom Oliverson, a Republican from Cypress and anesthesiologist, to support House Bill 46. That bill, authored by Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, will expand the Texas Compassionate Use Program, the state's limited medicinal marijuana program, to Texans suffering from chronic pain, illnesses such as Crohn's disease, and those who are terminally ill.
'The Senate and my concern has always been that we don't want to go back to the days of doctors writing prescriptions for anyone who paid them for a prescription for pain pills,' Patrick announced on X. 'The Texas Medical Board has put in strong guidelines to prevent that from happening over the last decade. Dr. Oliverson presented a new thoughtful plan that the Senate and I can support that will help those in true need of relief."
Patrick noted that the bill would increase the number of licenses to 12 from three and add satellite locations in each public health region of the state for the first time.
HB 46, which was amended and passed by the Senate on Tuesday, also awaits a signature from Abbott, whose office declined to comment on pending legislation when contacted by the American-Statesman.
There has been considerable debate about whether Abbott, who has never had a THC ban on his list of top legislative priorities, will sign SB 3 into law.
In March, he offered tacit support for marijuana decriminalization, telling the Houston Chronicle that "small possession of marijuana is not the type of violation that we want to stockpile jails with."
'Look, I'm not going to speak for the governor,' Patrick said on Wednesday. 'He will do what he's going to do. I have total confidence in the governor.'
In April, polling by UT's Texas Politics Project found that 50% of Texas voters opposed an outright ban, including 35% who expressed strong opposition — more than double the 17% who said they strongly supported a ban. In total, just 34% expressed support.
'The thing that's the most surprising about this is that Lt. Gov. Patrick usually follows his political antenna, and on this, he did not,' Scott Braddock, the editor of the Quorum Report, a Texas political newsletter, told KVUE. 'His own pollster found that only about 30% of Texas Republican voters agree with a full ban.'
Abbott has until June 22 to veto any bill that advances to his desk from the current legislative session, which ends Monday.
'This is a jump ball, 50/50 chance on this,' Braddock told KVUE. 'Abbott could sign this into law at the urging of Lt. Gov. Patrick, or he could veto it, and he'd make a lot of the MAGA crowd, the Trump supporters, really happy because they don't agree with a full ban.'
Meanwhile, many THC product advocates and business owners like the Harris brothers are still holding onto hope that their $10 billion industry won't go up in smoke.
'We've been dealing with a bunch of bills like this for four years,' Todd Harris said. 'Each time the community comes out and speaks (against it), so we've been able to keep this industry alive and booming.'
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas THC ban threatens burgeoning cannabis industry, local businesses