Texas is set to enforce a ban on smokable hemp flower starting March 31.
New regulations for Texas’s estimated $5.5 billion hemp market, adopted by the state Department of State Health Services last week, also include stricter THC measurement standards and fee increases for retailers and manufacturers of other hemp THC products, according to KUT News in Austin.
It’s the latest example of rules that hemp operators and advocates say amount to a de-facto blanket ban on hemp THC products, KUT reported.
Can the Texas hemp THC industry survive new regulations?
The largest individual state market for hemp THC products, Texas last year flirted with a blanket ban on intoxicating hemp.
But last June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a ban. In September, he issued an executive order directing hemp THC products to be regulated instead.
However, hemp operators say the new rules that prohibit smokable flower threatens their businesses.
New regulations revise the definition of “total THC” to include tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) in the calculation of total delta-9 THC, KUT reported. THCA, a nonpsychoactive compound, converts to delta-9 when heated.
Similar to the redefinition of hemp under federal law that takes effect in November, Texas now classifies smokable hemp products as illegal under the state’s 0.3% THC limit, KUT reported.
The change has drawn criticism from stakeholders in the state’s $5.5 billion hemp industry. But so has a new fee structure.
The new annual fees – $5,000 per retail location and $10,000 per manufacturing facility – are 33 and 40 times higher, respectively, than those now in place. Texas has more than 9,100 retail locations registered to sell consumable hemp products.
Texas hemp THC operators say law enforcement raids have begun
The ban comes amid heightened scrutiny of the hemp industry.
Over the past two years, Texas law enforcement has conducted more than 15 raids on hemp businesses, often seizing products and assets. However, many of the retailers that were raided have not been convicted of a crime, their attorneys told The Texas Tribune.
“You always see the headlines about the raids, but you never see these huge headlines about charges and indictments,” Andrea Steel, a Houston attorney for several THC businesses, told the Tribune.
