Marijuana prohibition is a Texas tradition. Unless Governor Greg Abbott vetoes Senate Bill 3, the state’s new ban on THC, the state is about to suddenly and drastically renew its commitment to that tradition—at a potential cost of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in lost taxable revenue, and countless lives broken in the prison system.
“We have to look at a long history in Texas,” said Austin Zamhariri, executive director of the Texas Cannabis Collective. “The modern enforcement of marijuana prohibition that exists today, that system began in Texas in 1915 in El Paso. It was the very first city in the entire country that prohibited marijuana.”
Zamhariri offered this historical perspective by way of explaining why our state is so eager to close the legal loophole that accidentally created a booming market for THC products about six years ago. “These systems have existed for 110 years,” he said.
After becoming pioneers in prohibition, it’s perhaps not surprising that Texas has lagged behind the rest of the country on marijauna legalization. Almost half the country—24 states and Washington, D.C.—have some form of legal recreational marijuana. The Texas government never intended to become one of those states, but hemp legalization changed all that.
Following a federal agriculture bill that allowed for commercial production of hemp, Texas enacted a law that legalized hemp in 2019, intending to open up a new agricultural market and the many potential uses of the plant for food, fiber, and construction materials. Hemp is legally defined as a form of the cannabis plant that contains less than 0.3 percent of THC, well below the threshold to make a person feel high. But that rigid definition failed to account for human ingenuity when it comes to getting stoned.
By the time the Legislature convened this year, the state was flooded with largely unregulated THC products, many of which are functionally almost identical to marijuana but technically legal. Their usage has been normalized in our state, where many residents now see cannabis consumption as an alternative to alcohol or prescription drugs.
One of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s top priorities for the 89th legislative session included a total ban on these THC products. That draconian push—which Patrick framed as a necessity to protect kids—for prohibition took many people by surprise.
“There’s not a place in Texas where cannabis has not become normalized through this,” Zamhariri said. “People just kind of assumed this is a thing, you know, we finally actually have access.”
For the hemp industry and Texas cannabis consumers, the past five months and change have been full of dashed hopes, as they first fought (unsuccessfully) to stop the Senate from passing a total ban bill back in March and then tried to influence the details of the Texas House’s more moderate version that sought to restrict and regulate the industry rather than ban it outright. Then, in the final days of the session, when the House took up its version of SB 3 on the floor, a majority of Republicans voted to approve an amendment by state Representative Tom Oliverson—an ally to the lieutenant governor—that brought the bill back in line with the Senate’s total ban.
Oliverson, who is an anesthesiologist, insisted the extreme move was necessary to protect Texans. “In pain management, self-medication is the first step in treatment failure, and the unregulated hemp market is a hazard to these Texas patients,” he told the Texas Tribune.
The effects will be far-reaching. The state hemp industry economic study estimates that the ban could cost over 50,000 jobs and about $5.5 billion in annual sales revenue. SB 3 bans popular products like THC-infused gummies, joints, vapes, and beverages, but industry experts worry that even products that have been commonplace and legal in Texas for years, like CBD oil or even edible hemp seeds (neither of which cause mind-altering effects), could still be caught up in the ban because of minute amounts of THC.
Sarah Todd, a former cannabis business owner, broke down in tears as she described the impact not just to operations like hers but to Texans who she says have greatly benefited from the easy availability of cannabis.
“I’m so devastated because this rolls back so many years of social acceptance, even here in Texas, where we have been so far behind on changing cannabis policy,” Todd told the Texas Observer.
Like so many other stakeholders, Todd spent many hours throughout the legislative session at the Capitol, meeting with lawmakers, testifying, and advocating for a more moderate version of the bill that would ban some (admittedly profitable) products like vapes while retaining recreational (but highly regulated) access to gummies, beverages, and other edibles.
“There was a huge, huge turnout from the hemp industry. Even though the regulations weren’t great, they were workable,” Todd said of the provisions in the earlier House version.
According to the lieutenant governor, unsafe products are being marketed and sold to children by shady vendors at gas stations and smoke shops alike, and only a total ban can protect Texans. “We are not going to allow these retailers to circumvent the law and put Texans’ lives in danger,” Patrick told CBS in December.
Cannabis advocates like Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center, argued that there are thousands of responsible hemp vendors in the state that have policies in place to prevent selling to underage buyers. In one widely publicized incident, a THC store employee refused to sell to Patrick himself without an ID. It’s a practice already commonplace in the industry, especially in upscale dispensary-style stores.
Fazio emphasized, “We have 8,000 retailers selling hemp products to mostly adult consumers, by choice.” Still, in the unregulated Texas THC market, there is no age restriction for purchasing THC products, and industry representatives at the Capitol were quick to acknowledge the need to establish clear rules that stop sales to minors, regulate currently unregulated products, and otherwise push out bad actors. “[The lack of an age restriction] is what has driven so much of the concern for change recently, as well as synthetic products that have made their way on the market.”
While the state’s nascent hemp industry broadly agrees on the need for regulation, many differ on where to draw the line.
“This industry has really grown and is starting to achieve some maturity, and there’s so many good actors and quality products on the market that this [ban] is going to devastate them,” Fazio said. “This is going to devastate their livelihood.”
Rather than eliminate demand, Fazio said that buyers would instead turn to the black market. “These products are legal, either cannabis or hemp, in all 49 other states so there’s no shortage of supply. So now what you’ve done is shift the demand from the legal market to the illegal market,” she said. “Who loves this the most are criminals and the cartels, because all the profit just got put right into their pockets.”
The backlash to the Patrick-led THC ban has come from across the spectrum—including, perhaps unexpectedly for the lieutenant governor, from many on the MAGA right.
Since SB 3’s passage, the hemp industry and other THC advocates have been in a media war with Patrick as they each try to influence Governor Abbott, who has the power to sign the ban into law or veto it by June 22. Near the end of the session, Patrick held an impromptu press conference in which he laid out an array of THC treats on a table, spewed misinformation about some of the products, challenged press members to eat any of them (tossing a bag at the crowd), and lashed out at a Houston Chronicle reporter. Patrick said the ban was necessary to “save an entire generation” from “being hooked on drugs.”
Calls and letters from hemp industry advocates as well as military veterans’ groups have flooded the governor’s phone lines and offices urging Abbott to veto the bill.
There’s some precedent for Abbott to use his veto pen on this. In June 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed a similar bill that banned or restricted THC products. In a message accompanying the veto, DeSantis stated that the bill would “impose debilitating regulatory burdens on small businesses and almost certainly fail to achieve its purposes.” As governors of two red mega-states (both without legal recreational weed), Abbott and DeSantis have repeatedly sought to outdo each other on right-wing issues du jour.
Lawsuits to block implementation of the bill are also likely. An injunction issued in a lawsuit in 2021 managed to block implementation of a statewide policy that would have banned sale of smokable hemp products, giving some hope for a similar outcome with the THC ban, especially since SB 3 varies so dramatically from federal laws around hemp.
João Mitchell, general manager of ATX Organics, which operates a pair of Austin dispensaries selling hemp-based THC and CBD products, admitted that they would struggle to remain in business under the new law. Currently, they employ 15 people, all of whom make at least $20 per hour, he said. Mitchell said he is going to “hope and pray that the lawsuit goes through,” otherwise they would be forced to move the business, or worse.
“Honestly, we’re probably more likely to shut down than we are to stay here in Texas and operate under [SB 3],” he told the Observer.
Aaron Owens, owner and lead farmer of Tejas Tonic, which makes low-dose THC beverages, said they were determined to adapt to the new law, even if it means changing their recipe and business model. He believes that the natural terpenes (flavor compounds) and essential oils in hemp can still benefit consumers, even with THC cut out of the picture.
“We’re going to continue to cultivate hemp, which this bill did not ban,” he said. “If we have to adjust our formulas to be compliant, we will continue to do that, and we’ll stay within the law, but we’re going to keep pushing, and we’re going to keep bringing the most effective products that I know how to create.”
Despite supporting a total ban on recreational THC, Patrick also backed HB 46, an expansion to the Texas Compassionate Use Program (often referred to by its initials as “teacup”), which is the state’s existing medical marijuana program.The TCUP expansion bill increases the number of licensed vendors allowed, allows for more pickup locations, and also adds chronic pain to the list of medically qualifying conditions—though that list is still stricter than those in many other states with similar programs.
Morgan Miller was another frequent visitor to the Capitol this session, testifying about her use of hemp-based THC products to treat side effects of her chronic migraines. Chronic migraine sufferers have at least 15 days with headaches and migraine symptoms per month, and Miller said that hemp products help her calm her body down, stimulate her appetite, and ease bodily inflammation. It’s also helped her replace alcohol, which was hurting her liver alongside her migraine medication, with hemp-based THC drinks.
“My quality of life is going to be down the drain,” Miller told the Observer. “It’s not only that I want hemp products, but I genuinely need them for my health and for my mental health.”
She said she “can’t really imagine” a world where she can no longer go to her neighborhood dispensary for hemp edibles and drinks. “I’m honestly really afraid of what my life is going to look like moving forward if this ban goes all the way through.”
Grace Delgado of Texas Cannabis Today assisted in the reporting of this story.
