{"id":353427,"date":"2026-06-28T12:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/353427\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:57:19","slug":"cautiously-optimistic-cactus-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/353427\/","title":{"rendered":"Cautiously Optimistic Cactus \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask anyone who knows me and they\u2019ll tell you that I\u2019m a card-carrying rescheduler. I love canceled plans, rain checks, and even an occasional Irish Goodbye. When Todd Harris, co-owner of Happy Cactus<\/a>, had to reschedule our interview a couple times, I was simply curious: What was keeping him so busy?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harris sat down in his OMG Squee<\/a> T-shirt looking a little frazzled. As it turns out, both Todd Harris and his brother and co-owner Mickey have been pulling many extra hours to fill in the gaps after having to let go of half their staff due to (you guessed it) Texas\u2019 smokable hemp ban. Back in March, when the ban was initiated<\/a>, the Harris brothers were able to hold on to their staff and continue to pay them while they waited for things to turn around. While an injunction issued in the lawsuit challenging the Texas Department of State Health Services briefly paused the ban, the ban is back on now<\/a> as the case slowly makes its way through the courts.<\/p>\n

Harris told me that he runs the retail committee for the Texas Hemp Business Council<\/a>, which has over a hundred members. He serves as a liaison between the members and DSHS<\/a>, or \u201cDishes\u201d as he calls it, trying to get answers on legal questions while he and other business owners try to figure out how to pivot after losing sometimes over half their sales because of the ban, which now includes THCA, an element that is non-psychoactive until it is converted through smoking. Lawmakers are now calling this a loophole, Harris said, even though they are the ones who enabled the industry to get started eight years ago with the farm bill. \u201cNow they\u2019re all backtracking because they\u2019re getting money from alcohol and prisons and whoever else wants to stop the hemp industry, which is a lot of people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I pointed out that a lot of businesses still have smokable products on their shelves. I was able to purchase a preroll just the other day. \u201cIt\u2019s very confusing right now,\u201d he told me, \u201cbecause DSHS has told multiple retailers that I\u2019ve talked to and myself that they\u2019re not actually going to actually come out and do inspections and enforce these new rules. They\u2019re saying that, but they\u2019re not going to challenge the policy, and DPS and TABC can still enforce it, so it feels a little sketchy to us.\u201d Harris doesn\u2019t trust the nudge-nudge, wink-wink method of running a business. But if you\u2019re seeing a lot of shops still selling smokable products, now you know why.<\/p>\n

Happy Cactus is still able to sell Delta-8 products. Some shops are moving into THCP, but Harris said that they have no plans to do that. Both components are naturally occurring in the plant, but Delta-8 is more accessible and THCP has to pretty much be synthesized in a lab, Harris explained. Happy Cactus prefers THCA flower, which doesn\u2019t require any altering, just the plant in its pure form.<\/p>\n

I asked Harris what it was like to come to the decision to let five out of their nine employees go. He gave me two reasons: First, Happy Cactus can\u2019t sustain their full staff anymore after losing half of their sales. Even the employees that they retained are being kept on for fewer hours and a slightly lower rate. He described everyone as being understanding. \u201cWe built a family here,\u201d he said. \u201cThey know it\u2019s not a decision that we take lightly at all. We thought through every possibility.\u201d Secondly, the federal ban<\/a> is still looming over everyone in November. \u201cWe thought that was going to be cleared up by now,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut we\u2019re halfway through the year and no one has any clear vision of what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d Their plan right now is to consolidate the business and make as much as they can over the next few months to help them figure out how to pivot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all very depressing,\u201d he admitted. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for six years now. Me and my brother\u2026 we didn\u2019t have investors in the beginning; it\u2019s just been blood, sweat, and tears.\u201d Even Harris\u2019 wife, who came on as their project manager, is now having to get another job. Last year, they were looking at expanding. Now, the future is uncertain.<\/p>\n

Amidst these dark times, we turned back to the lighter subject of the Happy Cactus origin story. Harris was in a band for 15 years, touring around the country. He still looks every bit the part with waves of red hair and a beard to match. In 2020, both Harris brothers left their day jobs due to COVID-19 safety concerns. \u201cWe weren\u2019t really hanging out with people,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were stuck at home in our heads.\u201d They met once a week for a whole year to start planning their business. They would go on bike rides, chill at Mickey\u2019s apartment, look at products, find samples, and figure out what they wanted to sell. \u201cWe wanted to be very curated and educational since it was a new market here. \u2026 We really wanted to take care of the community and make sure we have safe products.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Harris brothers launched a website at the end of 2020, but quickly realized that it\u2019s very difficult to promote cannabis and CBD online while also educating people. So a few months into 2021 they bought a friend\u2019s old taco truck and converted it into their signature pink truck, where they sold for two years in South Austin. In 2022, they established a second truck in East Austin. Finally, they rented a small brick-and-mortar store. \u201cI was excited to have a bathroom and AC for our staff and ourselves,\u201d Harris laughed. Eventually, they opened a second brick-and-mortar store. Until recently, they were thinking about a third. \u201cOur business has grown every month since we started until this year,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

Harris has had darker thoughts about selling the business. He still has some \u201cdoom and gloom,\u201d he admitted, but is trying to find the energy to continue fighting this, especially having the responsibility of running the retail committee for THBC. His smile started to come back while retelling the Happy Cactus origin story. \u201cThinking back on those days helps me want to fight more,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we could still get it back, even if we lose everything this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Harris what people can do if they want to help. \u201cSupport your local head shops during this. If there\u2019s somewhere close to your house you can go to buy gummies and drinks, please do that. We\u2019re all definitely going to be struggling this next month trying to figure out how to deal without our biggest seller.\u201d He added that he hopes the public will keep researching the rules and cannabis in general and staying aware of what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want us to give up,\u201d he said. But perhaps, like its namesake plant, Happy Cactus will continue to find a way to thrive even in harsh, unwelcoming conditions.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to\u00a0The Austin Chronic newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest column and other cannabis news delivered straight to your inbox.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article appears in June 26 \u2022 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask anyone who knows me and they\u2019ll tell you that I\u2019m a card-carrying rescheduler. I love canceled plans,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,125837,30315,83644,78676],"class_list":["post-353427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-happy-cactus","tag-hemp-ban","tag-texas-hemp-business-council","tag-todd-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353427","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=353427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}