Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced Wednesday that lawmakers in the state Senate would move to ban all forms of consumable tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in Texas.
Patrick, who presides over the Senate and largely controls the flow of legislation in the chamber, said the THC ban would be designated as Senate Bill 3 — a low bill number that signals it is among his top priorities for the upcoming legislative session.
The Republican-controlled Legislature was widely expected to take aim at Texas’ booming hemp market, which has proliferated with thousands of cannabis dispensaries since lawmakers authorized the sale of consumable hemp in 2019.
That law, passed one year after hemp was legalized nationwide, was intended to boost Texas agriculture by permitting the commercialization of hemp containing trace amounts of non-intoxicating delta-9 THC. But Patrick contends the law has been abused by retailers using loopholes to market products with unsafe levels of THC, including to minors.
“Dangerously, retailers exploited the agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of THC to the public and made them easily accessible,” Patrick said in a statement announcing the measure late Wednesday. “Since 2023, thousands of stores selling hazardous THC products have popped up in communities across the state, and many sell products, including beverages, that have three to four times the THC content which might be found in marijuana purchased from a drug dealer. ”
Texas has not legalized marijuana in any form for broad use.
Critics of the current hemp market point to a lack of testing requirements, age restrictions, and regulation, arguing that the proliferation of products — ranging from gummies and beverages to vapes and flower buds — has posed health risks and disrupted access for medical cannabis patients. Consumable hemp products are required by law to contain no more than 0.3% THC — the intoxicating part of the cannabis plant that comes in forms known as delta-8, delta-9 and THCA — but Patrick asserts that some items sold in Texas far exceed this limit.
The Texas hemp industry, meanwhile, has argued in court that delta-8’s high is minimal, and if delta-8 and delta-9 products are banned, it would do irreparable harm to the industry and the state’s economy.
Patrick said the bill to ban THC would be carried by state Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who previously carried the 2019 agricultural hemp bill. Perry has expressed dismay about the exploding market for cannabis products from the many hemp dispensaries that have popped up since lawmakers authorized the sale of consumable hemp.
Consumable hemp products come in forms that include smokable vapes and flower buds, oils and creams, baked goods, drinks, gummies and candies.
They contain industrial hemp or hemp-derived cannabinoids, including the non-intoxicating cannabidiol known as CBD, and are required to stay under the 0.3% THC threshold.
The difference in the legal and illegal products lies in the plants from which they come. Hemp and marijuana plants are both cannabis plants. Marijuana plants have high THC. Hemp has low THC.
The Legislature is scheduled to reconvene Jan. 14.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/04/texas-thc-ban-dan-patrick-delta-8-9-hemp/.
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