{"id":263039,"date":"2026-04-23T17:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/263039\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:41:17","slug":"hearing-on-smokeable-hemp-ban-in-texas-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/263039\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing on smokeable hemp ban in Texas delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A hearing to decide the future of smokeable hemp products in Texas has been delayed.<\/p>\n

A Travis County judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) earlier this month to block a new state rule banning products like THCA flower from Texas store shelves. Members of the hemp industry say that the new rules overstep current hemp laws, and the order allowed the products to continue to be sold pending a hearing on the matter.<\/p>\n

That hearing was originally scheduled for April 23, but it has been delayed by an attorneys\u2019 agreement until at least April 28, according to Texas Public Radio<\/a>. The TRO remains in effect for now.<\/p>\n

Texas lawmakers legalized hemp in 2019 after changes to the 2018 Farm Bill opened up hemp rules nationwide, but it could only contain low levels of delta-9 THC \u2014 the thing that gets you high. Manufacturers quickly found essentially loopholes in the law, like delta-8 THC, and now the popular THCA \u2014 a naturally occurring compound in cannabis that only becomes intoxicating delta-9 THC when burnt.<\/p>\n

Ever since then, states nationwide have slowly grappled with how to handle the products that put legal cannabis on sale in smoke shops and gas stations. Leaders in the Texas Legislature attempted to ban consumable hemp products during their last session under the direction of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, citing concerns about safety in the face of the products \u2014 some of which now contain high levels of intoxicating forms of THC.<\/p>\n

That effort was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott, who instead directed state agencies to put new hemp rules into effect this winter that, among other things, banned smokeable products and put large new fees on cannabis retailers.<\/p>\n

The rules went into effect at the beginning of April before the TRO blocked the smokeable hemp rule, pending legal challenge.<\/p>\n

Advocates for the products argue the rules will block a lot of Texans from using the products that have brought them relief from issues like pain, sleeplessness and several other issues. Austin attorney and cannabis advocate Susan Hays also argues the rules seem to target the most natural forms of consumable hemp while allowing much more synthetic and much more powerful products to stay on the shelves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis punishes the best actors and lets the worst actors go scot-free,\u201d said Hays, who also points out that a growing majority of the country has already legalized cannabis making the products still accessible to Texans with little benefit to the state or its businesses. \u201cThese products are coming into the state regardless. What these rules are doing is preventing the state of Texas from effectively managing the safety or efficacy of the products.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there is also a new federal law scheduled to take effect later this year that would effectively ban most consumable hemp products nationwide. Advocates are trying to delay those rules and push for amendments before they can take effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A hearing to decide the future of smokeable hemp products in Texas has been delayed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1657,1658,2160,132,134,133,21403,1570,102,138,223,287,82,27,1569,2053,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-263039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-austin","12":"tag-austin-headlines","13":"tag-austin-news","14":"tag-brian-scott","15":"tag-ctv","16":"tag-dallas","17":"tag-el-paso","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-san-antonio","21":"tag-texas","22":"tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}