Malen Blackmon
Audio By Carbonatix
If you thought the THC ban madness was over, think again. Though the Texas THC industry caught a break when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill that would’ve banned intoxicating hemp from being sold in Texas, the federal government has picked up right where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the loudest anti-THC champion in the state, left off. When the nation’s lawmakers eventually return following the government shutdown, the same debates that occurred in Austin earlier this year will continue in Washington, D.C.
“When the government reopens, the plan from Congressional leadership is to move immediately to a ‘minibus’ appropriations conference committee, which will include language that threatens to eliminate the entire hemp industry with a ban on all hemp-derived THC,” said Jim Higdon, founder of a THC-infused product company, Cornbread Hemp.
The federal effort is a package of resolutions that would amend the 2018 Farm Bill, which originally legalized THC-infused products under 0.3% potency nationwide. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell authored the initial bill, but the Bluegrass State octogenarian has flipped his script, heavily backing new resolutions that would alter the verbiage and recriminalize THC.
The pivotal point of the resolutions is a proposal to prohibit hemp derivatives with a “quantifiable” amount of THC, in summation, all THC products, but leaving CBD products untouched. Higdon notes that the most popular CBD products also contain THC as an ingredient, and though this feels like a bone being thrown, it’s actually a move taken straight from the Patrick playbook.
“It’s identical [to the Texas version],” he said. “It criminalizes all THC, and then the proponents of that plan turn around and say, well, you can still have CBD, you just can’t have THC… It makes any quantifiable amount of THC illegal, and you can quantify something down to the part per billion. It’s a Dan Patrick-style prohibition that is being proposed.”
Bipartisan Divide Dissolves Over Green
Higdon is hopeful the THC ban will not pass, and similarly to what happened in Texas, it looks like the biggest guy in charge has a more libertarian perspective on marijuana than the typical GOP member.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump posted a pro-medical marijuana video to his social media app, Truth Social. While the endorsement is not a rubber stamp on legalization, nor does the president have any control over Congress’s votes, he does have significant influence over the GOP perspective.
“It appears that President Trump posted a pro-hemp video onto his Truth Social account last week. That has certainly gotten a lot of attention. One hears that [Trump] supports our industry and that he does not want to see it banned,” said Higdon. “We were hopeful that [it’s] being made clear to the Republican members of the Appropriations Conference Committee, because when they go behind closed doors, we know that two of the members at that committee will be J. D. Harris and Mitch McDonald, who very much want to ban hemp products. If President Trump does not want that to happen, he’s going to have to make that well-known.”
A number of legislators from both sides of the aisle have joined in expressing their concerns about a hemp ban, which would wipe out a several billion dollar industry. In a letter sent to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, 27 House representatives strongly opposed the resolutions. Among them are North Texans Julie Johnson and Marc Veasey, as well as Houston Republican Dan Crenshaw. Unlikely fighters jumping in the ring are South Carolina’s Nancy Mace and Kentucky’s James Cormer.
“By arbitrarily changing the definition of legal hemp rather than responsibly regulating the market, Congress is effectively turning out the lights on America’s legal hemp farmers and undermining the work being done by our colleagues in the authorizing committees and in states that have created regulatory frameworks for hemp products,” reads the letter addressed to Speaker Johnson.
Higdon says the changing perspectives of lawmakers as the THC industry grows keep the debate of various bans under the dome of Capitol buildings across the country.
“This is an issue that’s divided the Republican Party,” he said. “The divide between Abbott and Patrick, that’s a real divide that has really split the Republican Party in half. You can see that state after state and at the federal level.”
A Rehashing of the Texas Ban
The Texas Legislature passed a bill in June that would completely outlaw hemp-derived THC products in Texas. The passage came after a whirlwind session filled with theatrics and hyperbolized anti-marijuana rhetoric led by Patrick, who championed the issue. Then, in the final hours, literally minutes before the bill would become automatically enforced without his signature, Abbott vetoed it, much to the chagrin of his longtime colleague.
Soon after, Abbott added the issue to the agenda for the first of two special sessions. However, House Democrats then left the state, breaking the quorum, over proposed congressional redistricting, and the THC issue was put on the back burner. When the Democrats returned, they presumably had bigger fish to fry than people’s ability to get fried on THC.
The first special session ended, and a second special session began, with THC somewhere on the agenda. However, after a tumultuous legislative season, the THC ban never made its way onto the House calendar, despite passing the Senate. Roughly two weeks after it began, the second special session ended, with no progress on the THC issue.
“After long discussions last night between the Governor, Speaker, and me on THC, and continued hours of discussion today, we were not able to come to a resolution,” Patrick said in a social media post.
Within days, Abbott released an executive order that touched on some of the primary concerns of the loudest THC-opponents, like ID-verified age limitations. Enforcement officially began this month, and yesterday the governor directed the Department of Public Safety to conduct targeted undercover operations to sniff out smoke and vape shops illegally selling THC products to those under 21.
“Texas will protect children from dangerous hemp products,” said Governor Abbott. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to increase surveillance and enforcement of any vape and smoke shop violating Texas law. Texas will prioritize protecting our children.”
Higdon hopes Texas can serve as a warning of a potential national ban’s failure.
“I hate to jink it, but we feel optimistic,” he said. “If Prohibition won’t stick in Texas, where is it going to stick?… We’re using the time during the shutdown to reach out to every member of the conference committee that we can find in order to better our chances.”
