Fort Worth hemp shop owners Candice Stinnett and Alex Noriega are worried that their options for keeping their businesses alive may be exhausted as a result of new regulations.
The shop owners said they are reeling from a one-two punch by newly imposed state and federal cannabis bans that virtually eliminate intoxicants from smokable products — a move that could shut down their businesses.
The restrictions come as President Donald Trump reclassifies marijuana products as lower-risk drugs rather than treat it similarly to heroin. The administration’s loosening does not decriminalize marijuana for recreational use.
“In Texas, our options have been systematically narrowed to the point of near-extinction,” said Stinnett, owner of Emerald Organics in far north Fort Worth.
The new rules pushed Stinnett to lay off 16 of her 29 employees in March, she said.
Candice Stinnett owns Emerald Organics and Emerald City Lounge in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Noriega’s downtown Fort Worth store, called Natural Buds, is mostly set up around hemp flower products, the target of new regulations. He said he might not be able to pivot.
“We’ve got our toes dug in the ground here with cannabis,” Noriega said. “We don’t do nicotine, mushrooms, or anything like that, so it’s going to be a major impact on us.”
The challenges have come from two fronts.
The Texas Department of State Health Services on April 1 increased registration fees for cannabis shops from $155 to $5,000 and limited the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient known as THC, allowed in goods for sale to 0.3%. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the health department last year to create the regulations.
The rules would ban virtually all smokable products and many other store items. Enforcement of the regulations was temporarily halted after the hemp industry challenged them in an ongoing lawsuit in state district court.
A federal law imposing stricter limits on hemp products by allowing only trace amounts of THC is looming. The regulation would affect 95% of all products currently sold in hemp shops and could outlaw many nonintoxicating CBD products, according to cannabis industry group Clark Hill.
The federal law goes into effect on Nov. 12.
U.S. Rep. Mark Veasey, D-Fort Worth, voted against the bill that included new regulations, while Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, voted for it. The regulations were included in funding legislation that ended the 43-day federal government shutdown in November.
In January, Veasey and Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Virginia, introduced a bill that would create a pathway for federal regulation of CBD products. The bill would create federal guidance so hemp businesses can operate rather than rely on a variety of state laws, according to a news release. The legislation was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Veasey and Goldman did not respond to requests for comment.
In Texas, the regulations will affect 9,100 shops that employ more than 53,000 people. Hemp generates an estimated $4.3 billion in Texas, according to Cannabis Business Times.
The Texas Hemp Business Council filed suit against the state regulations and claimed that the health department had overstepped its authority.
The state regulations went into effect only for a short time, causing Noriega and Stinnett to pull much of their inventory. Losing these products indefinitely could force an immediate pivot to edibles and compliant products or abandoning the hemp market altogether, they said.
Stinnett said she welcomes the legal challenge, but it’s coming too late.
“We aren’t just talking about regulations on paper. We are talking about people’s livelihoods,” she said.
An indica hybrid hemp flower named Death Star is sold at Emerald City Lounge on April 23, 2026, in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Her business, and, she believes, most other shops, cannot sell enough gummies, oils and other products to make up for the loss of smokable flower goods, she said. And that’s before the federal regulation goes into effect.
“The national ban is like a ticking clock that the entire industry is currently fighting,” Stinnett said. “They are effectively banning almost every consumable hemp product on the market, including many nonintoxicating CBD wellness products.”
Noriega said he doesn’t understand why regulators are bent on putting hemp products out of the reach of consumers.
“Alcohol is far easier to ingest than cannabis and it is sold without child-proofing containers,” he said. “Moreover, there are lethal drugs such as fentanyl that are in public possession with a simple childproof prescription bottle. Why should cannabis be treated (as being so dangerous)?”
Raymond Gorvie is a journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin and a contributor to the Fort Worth Report.
News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/04/26/feds-state-squeeze-fort-worth-hemp-shops-toward-brink/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=505692&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/04/26/feds-state-squeeze-fort-worth-hemp-shops-toward-brink/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>