But Texas hemp businesses are asking Travis County’s 261st Civil District Court to issue a longer-lasting injunction that would keep parts of the state’s new hemp rules on hold while their lawsuit against state health regulators plays out. The lawsuit could take years to resolve.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs, seven Texas businesses and two trade associations, say the rules would upend a multibillion-dollar market and force small shops to close.<\/p>\n
The defendants, represented by lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, say state regulators are not banning hemp, but clarifying how THC should be measured so businesses cannot sell products that become far more mind-altering when smoked, vaped or heated.<\/p>\n
State asks judge to stop KUT News from recording <\/p>\n
At the start of the of the three-day hearing that began Tuesday, the Attorney General’s Office asked the judge to deny a formal request from KUT News<\/a> to record the hearing, claiming such reporting would “would unduly distract participants.”<\/p>\n Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle rejected the state’s request.<\/p>\n “What transpires in a courtroom is public property, and a trial proceeding is public information,” Judge Deseta Lyttle said. “To disallow a media request to record this public event … would be equivalent to conducting this hearing in private.”<\/p>\n Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle is presiding over a temporary injunction hearing related to the hemp industry’s lawsuit against the state. <\/p>\n Delta-9 vs THCA<\/p>\n The hearing then turned to a central question: Did Texas health regulators clarify the state’s hemp rules or effectively rewrite state law? <\/p>\n Amanda Taylor, an attorney for the hemp industry, framed the case as a separation of powers fight.<\/p>\n “We have a situation where the state defendants, the administrative officials, have overreached their delegated rulemaking authority into the territory of the legislature,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n Attorney Amanda Taylor, one of several plaintiffs’ attorneys, argued the legal dispute is “decidedly a separation of powers case.”<\/p>\n Under Texas law, hemp and marijuana are legal categories for cannabis. The difference is the amount of Delta-9 THC, the main psychoactive compound in the plant. Hemp has no more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC by dry weight.<\/p>\n But hemp flower and concentrates can contain THCA<\/a>, a naturally occurring compound that is not psychoactive in the same way, but converts to Delta-9 when smoked, vaped or heated. <\/p>\n That distinction helped create a large retail market for cannabis flower and concentrates in Texas and other states that have not legalized recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The new Department of State Health Services rules, which took effect March 31<\/a>, count THCA toward a “total Delta-9 THC” calculation, effectively prohibiting the sale of the most popular consumable hemp products.<\/p>\n Smokable products account for well over half of the market in Texas, according to Robin Goldstein<\/a>, director of the Cannabis Economics Group<\/a> at UC Davis.<\/p>\n Lawyers for the Attorney General’s Office said the rules are consistent with existing state and federal agricultural regulations governing the cultivation of hemp, which require a “total Delta-9 THC” test 30 days before harvest.<\/p>\n “When these goods are used in the manner intended by the manufacturer, it is not uncommon for the user to consume a cannabis product that now contains 100 times the legal amount of Delta-9 THC,” argued Zachary Berg, a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.<\/p>\n Zachary Berg, special counsel at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, argued the state’s new hemp regulations don’t rewrite existing law, but are needed to protect public health and safety.<\/p>\n Hemp businesses call rules ‘devastating’ <\/p>\n The hemp industry also challenged sharply higher fees included in the new rules. Retail license fees increased from $150 to $5,000 per location per year. The annual cost of manufacturing licenses rose from $250 to $10,000 per facility.<\/p>\n The state argued higher fees are needed because DSHS can’t inspect businesses often enough under the current fee structure.<\/p>\n But Beau Whitney, chief economist at Whitney Economics, testified for the hemp businesses that DSHS failed to meaningfully analyze how the rules would affect businesses, workers and local economies.<\/p>\n “I found it surface level and incomplete, to be quite frank,” Whitney said of the state’s economic analysis. “There was lots of data available to them, and they just didn’t leverage it.”<\/p>\n Whitney estimated the Texas hemp market supports nearly 49,000 jobs and has a total economic impact of almost $10 billion. The state challenged his methodology, noting that he relied partly on earlier survey data and didn’t conduct a new survey specifically for the lawsuit<\/p>\n Business owners testified the rules would reach beyond flower and concentrates.<\/p>\n Cosmetologist Lauren Bridges, a salon owner who also founded Alchemy TX in Longview, said she developed a hair growth serum that includes THCA. Bridges said if the regulations take effect, it could be economically “devastating.”<\/p>\n “It’s what sustains me and my family of four,” Bridges testified, adding she had kids ages 2 and 16.<\/p>\n Nathan Bernier<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n KUT News <\/p>\n Alchemy TX sells its own products online and at a retail location in downtown Longview where customers can see plants being grown and processed into oils, owner Lauren Bridges said. <\/p>\n Medical marijuana company sides with state<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777538119_152_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777538120_635_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777538120_25_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777538121_445_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777538121_564_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n