{"id":9257,"date":"2025-10-18T00:23:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T00:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/9257\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T00:23:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T00:23:13","slug":"most-texas-thc-products-remain-legal-after-gop-leaders-fail-to-break-legislative-impasse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/9257\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Texas THC products remain legal after GOP leaders fail to break legislative impasse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for The Brief<\/a>, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.<\/p>\n

The Texas Legislature ended another legislative overtime round without banning or further regulating most THC products after a monthslong fight between lawmakers to rein in the exploding hemp industry.<\/p>\n

The Texas House gaveled out of the second special session late Wednesday, leaving behind Senate Bill 6<\/a>, which would have broadly banned consumable hemp products with any \u201cdetectable amount of any cannabinoid.\u201d Only those with cannabidiol or cannabigerol, which are both non-psychoactive, would have stayed legal.<\/p>\n

That means most forms of consumable hemp-derived products stay legal in Texas. There also remains no age limit on who can purchase these goods, which come in the form of gummies, smokeable flowers and drinks. Yet it is now illegal to sell \u2014 but not possess \u2014 THC vape pens under a separate law<\/a>, passed earlier this year, that went into effect Monday.<\/p>\n

The House\u2019s move followed a last-minute effort<\/a> earlier in the day between top Republicans to hash out a compromise, after SB 6 sat without a hearing for two weeks in a House committee.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the night, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick<\/a> had announced that the Senate would wrap up the second special session without any new THC restrictions or ban in a post on X<\/a>. Patrick said he, Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> and House Speaker Dustin Burrows<\/a> were not able to reach an agreement despite \u201clong discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy position remains unchanged; the Senate and I are for a total THC ban,\u201d he said, adding that the Senate will adjourn after finalizing its remaining flood bills.<\/p>\n

The upper chamber ended their special session work early Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear if Abbott would call another special session to consider more THC restrictions, after vetoing an outright ban in June and putting the issue on two special session agendas. His office didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. In his veto, Abbott said the attempted ban would run afoul of federal law. He called for a regulatory approach instead, including restrictions on potency, age limits, enforcement mechanisms and a prohibition of synthetically modified hemp compounds.<\/p>\n

But Patrick insisted a ban was necessary to keep Texans safe, arguing that it would be impossible to properly regulate the more than 8,000 retailers that make up the state\u2019s fast-expanding hemp market. The Legislature inadvertently opened the door to Texas\u2019 consumable hemp industry in 2019 when lawmakers, seeking to align the state with federal law, passed a bill legalizing hemp.<\/p>\n

The industry has so far backed Abbott\u2019s position<\/a> for restrictions instead of prohibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ban is wildly unpopular,\u201d said Cynthia Cabrera, president of The Texas Hemp Business Council. She is also the chief strategy officer for Hometown Hero, an Austin-based manufacturer of hemp-derived THC products. \u201cAnd the fact that the lieutenant governor continues to push something everybody has essentially said they don\u2019t want speaks volumes about how disconnected he is to what Texans want, what the governor wants and what consumers want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the industry could also start to see more enforcement<\/a> of current laws restricting the drug.<\/p>\n

Currently, these products may not contain more than 0.3% concentration of delta-9 THC, the intoxicating part of the cannabis plant, in dry weight. Enforcing this rule has been a challenge because it is difficult to test products and cite retailers.<\/p>\n

Patrick\u2019s vow to end the Senate\u2019s work without a ban was a whiplash development after Texas Republicans spent much of the day working on a compromise, according to five legislative staffers and three lawmakers familiar with the discussions. But those last-minute talks were also an unexpected twist: The main legislative proposal \u2014 an outright ban on THC products \u2014 had been dormant since Aug. 20. It was not clear earlier Wednesday what a potential deal would look like.<\/p>\n

Other proposals during the second special session included legislation<\/a> from Rep. Briscoe Cain<\/a>, R-Deer Park, that would create the Texas Hemp Council to study and develop rules for THC products and establish hemp testing and licensing requirements, among other restrictions. Rep. Charlie Geren<\/a>, R-Fort Worth, also proposed a bill<\/a> barring the sale of THC products to those under 21.<\/p>\n

The split between Abbott and Patrick marked a rare public disagreement<\/a> between the men, who have largely aligned over a decade in office together.<\/p>\n

A full ban cleared the Senate both special sessions this summer but stalled in the House, where it became clear that it lacked enough votes to pass. During the regular session, some House members said they voted for a full THC prohibition under the impression that their unrelated bills would die in the Senate<\/a> if they failed to get in line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked hard for that common ground and just never could find it,\u201d Rep. Gary VanDeaver<\/a>, R-New Boston and the ban\u2019s author, said Tuesday afternoon before the last-ditch negotiations began. \u201cWe just don\u2019t see that we can get anything off the House floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle Bingham, a farmer in the South Plains who also serves as vice president of the National Hemp Growers Association, said it has been frustrating to navigate the legislative uncertainty over the past few months. Instead of growing hemp, he said he has been focusing on other crops such as wheat and cotton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s already difficult to operate in this emerging industry,\u201d he said, \u201cand this is just one more layer of how difficult it is to do business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Bingham and Cabrera said that there could be improved regulations such as age restrictions \u2014 even as they oppose a full ban. In particular, Cabrera said the Legislature should have focused on the bill raising the age limit instead and that it was disappointing that lawmakers couldn\u2019t reach this \u201csimple fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is a sigh of relief,\u201d she said after learning about Patrick\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Katharine Neill Harris, drug policy fellow for Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute for Public Policy, similarly said it\u2019s worth another session to address specific issues such as the sale and marketing of THC products towards minors \u2014 separate from a blanket ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ban them, they become truly unregulated because they go to the illicit market,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we know that there are no regulations for illicit drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Renzo Downey<\/a> and Paul Cobler<\/a> contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1866,1864,392,3328,27,29,1862,28,1863],"class_list":["post-9257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-89th-legislative-session","tag-dan-patrick","tag-greg-abbott","tag-marijuana","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-house-of-representatives","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257","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=9257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}