24/07/2024
The Texas GOP says it’s time to limit h**p that gets you high. The industry wants regulation.
by Tracy Idell Hamilton San Antonio Report
The Texas Legislature doesn’t meet again until January, but a fight is already heating up over the state’s estimated $8 billion consumable h**p industry, pitting a usually business-friendly GOP against veterans organizations and others who say these products are used responsibly by millions and should be regulated — but not banned.
What neither side disputes is that these products get users high, something lawmakers didn’t account for when they penned the 2019 law that legalized the h**p industry in Texas.
At the time, CBD was the most common h**p-derived consumable, and it is generally not intoxicating or habit-forming.
But as the industry grew, it discovered that other intoxicating compounds could be coaxed from h**p, leading to an explosion of legal products that offer users a similar high to ma*****na. Under both current federal and state law, these products, which include candies, drinks, v**e pens and even h**p flower, can legally be sold to minors, be shipped across state lines and purchased with credit cards.
“It looks like we inadvertently made cannabis legal in Texas,” said state Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio), who favors additional regulation of the industry as opposed to an outright ban. Doing so, he said, could bring Texas millions in tax revenue, which could be used to “fix public schools, fix our roads.”
A majority of his colleagues across the aisle, however, seem to support Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who made banning these products one of his interim legislative priorities.
But as demand for these products in states like Texas that have not legalized ma*****na has exploded, the industry is fighting back, asking for additional targeted regulation that would keep it away from children and teens.
“A state legislature is meant to reflect the will of the people,” said Cynthia Cabrera, director of the recently formed Texas H**p Business Council. “Given the size of the market in Texas, it’s obvious that people want these products.”
It doesn’t appear pollsters have asked Texans where they stand on h**p-derived products. According to a 2024 Texas Lyceum poll, 73% support either full legalization or decriminalization of ma*****na. An even higher percentage support expanding the use of medical ma*****na.
H**p-derived cannabis products offer an increasing number of Texans relaxation and pain relief, and an alternative to alcohol, opioids and other pharmaceuticals, Cabrera said. The state’s “compassionate use” program, while it has expanded in recent years, remains limited to those with certain conditions.
According to an economic impact study performed in 2022, Texas’ “cannabusiness” revenue surpassed $8 billion that year, and supported roughly 50,000 jobs. H**p-derived product manufacturers, the report states, have invested more than $1 billion in infrastructure throughout the state.
Banning intoxicating h**p products will destroy this emerging statewide market, advocates say, but it will not affect demand, which will simply be driven underground, making products less safe.
That’s why the H**p Business Council backs measures like age restrictions, child-proof packaging and setbacks, much like alcohol sales, which restricts certain businesses from selling near schools.
‘Cannabusiness’ is booming
Patrick Brantley, a veteran and owner of Green Haven Cannabis Co., which recently opened its third location in San Antonio, said the stores’ customers include soccer moms, seniors and veterans as well as those who previously bought illegal products “on the street.” The stores do not sell to minors, Brantley said.
His latest shop, in Alamo Heights, eschews the more typical look of many retailers, which lean into ma*****na culture with psychedelic decor and pot leaf iconography. Instead, his dark wood-paneled shop offers a small, curated set of products sold by “budtenders” who educate a steady stream of the h**p-curious.
“The stigma around it is way down,” he said.
Brantley, who earned an MBA at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and said his goal is to become “the number one cannabis company in Texas,” employs eight of the estimated 50,000 Texans who work in the state’s h**p industry, which in 2022 paid $1.6 billion in wages.
Despite a growing customer base, Brantley said it’s been a hard year for his business. Overhead costs are high, and his shops have been robbed more than once.
Brantley said he’s not concerned about new state or even federal restrictions on the consumable h**p business. He noted that the state legislature had the opportunity to further regulate the industry during the last legislative session but didn’t do so.
“They’re not going to touch it,” he said. “You can say we’re not in the legal cannabis business all you want. But [Texas’ industry] is already four times California,” where recreational ma*****na is legal.
Others are far less sanguine.
“They put a target on us that does not indicate that they’re going to leave us alone,” Cabrera said.
In May, the Senate State Affairs Committee held a hearing on consumable h**p products, during which Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), who penned the 2019 bill, stopped shy of calling for an outright ban, instead suggesting that next session lawmakers “can clean this mess up that the industry chose to do.”
From illegal to ‘free weed’
For those who maybe haven’t been tracking h**p industry developments closely, but have noticed the proliferation of stores in San Antonio with names like Haze 4 Dayz 420 Dispensary, St. Mary Jane’s, Green Relief and Lit Gardens — not to mention sign spinners advertising “free weed” in front of some stores — here’s a basic overview of how we got here.
The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill legalized h**p, defining it as cannabis containing 0.3% or less by dry weight of THC, the plant’s main psychoactive ingredient. States were then invited to pen their own h**p laws, which Texas did in 2019.
That law authorized industrial h**p production and allowed for consumable h**p products. Since then, those products have expanded to include intoxicating cannabinoids, such as deltas -8, -9 and -10, HHC and THCA, which turns into THC when it’s “decarboxylated,” or heated.
At the May senate hearing, Cabrera said current law already regulates these products in Texas, including “full panel testing for all consumable cannabinoids, licensing and labeling requirements.” These test results are required to be made available to consumers; Brantley, for example, posts the test certificates on his website.
But a story by Texas Monthly, which has sat atop the magazine’s online “Most Read” list since it was published on June 26, found that most of the products it purchased and had tested by a third-party far exceeded legal THC levels.
A recent investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that even in that state’s regulated ma*****na market, many products contained high levels of pesticides, fungus and heavy metals.
Texas retailers told Texas Monthly they rely on product manufacturers for testing. The state’s Department of State Health Services has said it doesn’t have the resources to independently test products.
DSHS tried to quietly list delta-8 as a controlled substance back in 2021, and was promptly sued by Hometown Hero, a veteran-owned retailer and manufacturer. A district court injunction halted the ban, and the state appealed. The Third Court of Appeals ruled in Hometown Hero’s favor, keeping the injunction in place.
Perry added language to a bill that year to include a ban on delta-8, but it conflicted with a House version of the bill, and lawmakers ultimately failed to come up with a compromise.
The state then filed a petition with the Texas Supreme Court, claiming that delta-8 and other h**p-derived products are “synthetic equivalents” of the active ingredient in ma*****na and so qualify as Schedule 1 controlled substances.
Cabrera said it’s unclear whether the case would be heard by the state Supreme Court before lawmakers attempt to crack down on intoxicating h**p products in the next legislative session.
As the Texas industry hangs in the balance, similar efforts are being made at the federal level to further regulate intoxicating h**p products in the next version of the Farm Bill.
House Republicans have offered amendments that would bifurcate the definition of h**p into that grown for cannabinoid extraction and for industrial uses, as a precursor to cracking down on the former. A related appropriations bill that covers agriculture and related agencies includes similar language.
Lawmakers need to “leave their moral opposition aside,” Cabrera said. These products are not fueling a public health crisis in Texas, she said. “I don’t see anyone restricting liquor sale for adults, right? Yet the state is number one for alcohol-related accidents.”
