There is little doubt that a ban will sail through the Senate. But its prospects are far less certain in the House.
By Jasper Scherer | Texas Tribune | March 5, 2025
Six years after Texas lawmakers inadvertently triggered the state’s booming consumable hemp market, one chamber of the Legislature is pushing to shut down the industry by barring products that contain tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.
Yet even with the backing of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful Texas Senate leader, the proposal to ban THC faces uncertain prospects in the House, where the hemp industry is bullish about getting lawmakers to tighten regulations rather than quashing most of their products altogether.
In the lower chamber, efforts to ban THC products have failed to gain traction, and this session no House lawmaker has filed anything akin to Senate Bill 3, which would outlaw products containing any amount of THC. House leadership has avoided weighing in on the matter, including Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Mark Bordas, executive director of the Texas Hemp Business Council, said his group is “cautiously optimistic” that House lawmakers will forgo a ban and accept “thoughtful regulations” such as restricting THC products to Texans 21 and older, requiring tamper-proof packaging, and barring sales within a certain distance of schools. Some have also proposed tighter and more consistent testing requirements to ensure hemp products do not contain excessive levels of THC.
“We think at the end of the day, cooler heads will prevail,” Bordas said. “We hope the Legislature will recognize that there are more than 50,000 jobs and lots of small businesses at stake, people’s livelihoods as well as lives. People that have problems with alcohol or opioid addiction have turned to hemp so that they can be functional members of society again.”
Thousands of cannabis dispensaries have popped up across Texas since 2019, when the GOP-controlled Legislature authorized the sale of consumable hemp. That law, 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 ensued was a proliferation of hemp products, ranging from gummies and beverages to vapes and flower buds, that can now be bought at more than 8,300 locations around the state, from dispensaries to convenience stores. The products are not allowed to contain more than a 0.3% concentration of THC; anything higher is classified as marijuana, which remains illegal in Texas aside from limited medical use. Still, the hemp-derived products look, taste and sometimes have intoxicating effects similar to their more potent sibling. (Hemp and marijuana plants are both cannabis plants; the difference lies in their THC levels.)
Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican who carried the 2019 hemp legalization bill, says lawmakers did not intend to allow for such an explosion of consumable products. His latest proposal, SB 3, would make it illegal to possess or manufacture products containing THC outside the state’s medical marijuana program. Violators would face up to a year in jail for possessing such products and 2 to 10 years in prison for manufacturing them under Perry’s bill, which is among Patrick’s top priorities this session.
Read more here: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/05/texas-thc-ban-hemp-senate-bill/