06/12/2025
Upcoming THC ban affecting Texas industry
By Isaac Yu, Staff Writer SA Express News
Entrepreneurs across Texas’ h**p industry say they’re confident they can convince Congress to overturn a new national ban on THC before it takes effect next November.
But many warn that the looming prohibition is already complicating their ability to conduct day-to-day business, and they say many smaller operations may ultimately not survive.
“It’s like one battle after another” said Todd Harris, who co-owns Happy Cactus, a natural h**p chain with two locations in Austin.
The $8 billion industry spent much of the last year successfully lobbying to defeat a state ban on h**p-derived THC pushed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Then in November, Congress added a nationwide ban to a federal spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law.
“Everybody knows, as a stand-alone bill, this ban would not have passed, that’s why I think everybody is pretty much of the mindset that this won’t hold” said Lukas Gilkey, co-founder of Austin based Hometown Hero, who led a public lobbying campaign against the state ban. “We’ve got a proven track record within Texas, so we’re really now strategizing them on the federal level.”
Though the ban won’t kick in for months, companies say they are already seeing effects.
Some report, booming business, saying headlines about impending bans, have raised consumer awareness of their h**p-based products, which range from low-dose teachers and beverages to gummies and h**p flowers that look and smell much like ma*****na. Gilkey, whose company has featured Patrick in its advertising said “sales go through the roof“ each time the industry is put in the spotlight. 
Many said they had seen a clear path to legitimacy for their industry after Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the state ban and instead ordered new age restrictions and other regulations. Texas made h**p products, including those with intoxicating levels of THC, have quickly gone from fringe to main stream in two years, entering many restaurants and large brands, such as HEB and Total Wine.
But some businesses say, the threat of the national ban is causing new potential customers and financial institutions to get cold feet. Harris said his e-commerce plans fell through this week after the payment processor he was working with backed out.
Aaron Owens, founder of Tejas Tonic, which produces low-dose beverages from h**p grown in Luckenbach, said beer distributors that previously expressed interest in bringing THC drinks to bars, and restaurants have backed out of negotiations.
“All of your large-scale beer wholesalers get real interested after Abbott’s veto and in fact, we’re staging to make plays,” Owens said. “With the federal thing, it just blew them back again. They are just backing out for now.”
Supporters of bands on h**p derived THC, including U. S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, say they want to close a loophole in a law that was meant to boost farmers by allowing the agricultural production of h**p, and they warn that intoxicating products are reaching children across the two dozen states that have legalized h**p.
Lucas Evans, a h**p grower in Taylor, who focuses on industrial uses of h**p, such as textiles, said he believes the federal ban is positive, separating growers like him from those making intoxicating products and giving him a shot at gaining access to banks and capital.
But other farmers say, they are pausing plans to expand or even maintain the acreage of their h**p crop. They fear the ban’s severe limit on THC in any form, could make illegal a large swath of products with trace amounts of the compound, including non-intoxicating, CBD products, and even h**p hearts, a health food similar to flaxseeds. Even processing the h**p plant itself could be considered against the law under the nationwide ban, some fear. 
The economics of farming h**p for industrial uses are difficult as it is, said Kyle Bingham, a Lubbock farmer, and president of the Taxes H**p Growers Association. Now, several members of this organization have discussed pulling out of growing h**p altogether, dashing many farmers hopes of exploring the product’s diverse uses as an animal feed, or even h**p concrete.
“You throw in all this regulatory uncertainty and the rules changing, it gets real tricky, real fast” Bingham said, “I don’t think it makes sense for anyone to grow right now, any form of the plant.”
H**p economist, Robin Goldstein of the University of California-Davis argues that h**p businesses should just continue to operate even under a ban because enforcement would likely be sparse. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has declined to enforce the federal ban on ma*****na since 2014. State and local officials wouldn’t be able to make a rest, unless Texas passed a state level ban.
For some, that level of uncertainty is not a palatable business model.
“I’m a family, man and a Christian, so for me, I don’t do anything that’s in the gray area” said Jake Garry, who owns the CBD brand Drops of Life and a farming operation in Corpus Christi. “This would 100% shut down our businesses, completely.”
