Politics
Four In Five Texas Voters Want Hemp Products To Be Regulated, Not Banned, Poll Shows As THC Prohibition Bill Stalls
As a Texas Senate-passed bill to ban consumable hemp products with any amount of THC sits in limbo in the House, a new poll shows likely voters in the state across the political spectrum aren’t on board with the policy change—with an overwhelming majority saying they support regulation over prohibition of cannabinoids.
The Senate hemp bill is currently stalled amid a special session, as Democratic legislators have left the state to deny Republicans a quorum in protest of a redistricting proposal. Even so, a GOP state lawmaker filed a new alternative measure on Monday that would simply restrict the sale of consumable hemp products to adults aged 21 and older.
The survey from McLaughlin & Associates, meanwhile, found that 79 percent of likely voters in the Lone Star State back regulating the hemp THC market, while just 13 percent said they opposed that policy.
There was strong support for regulating hemp regardless of party affiliation, with 82 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents and 75 percent of Republicans saying they didn’t want to see hemp products outright banned.
Also, 62 percent of respondents said they’d be more likely to vote for a political candidate who backed creating a regulated consumable hemp market.
“This has become a bipartisan issue of personal liberty that all Texans are rallying behind, and any legislator who ignores voters does so at their own political peril,” Brian Swensen, executive director of the Hemp Industry & Farmers of America that commissioned the poll, said, according to Brietbart, which first reported the result.
“This is something that Governor Abbott understands, which is why he vetoed SB3 and called on legislators to put forth common-sense regulations to protect children, not another ban with a different bill number,” he said, referring to a bill passed during this year’s regular session that the governor rejected. “The prohibition of hemp cultivation, processing, and selling of consumable products in Texas represents a significant government overreach that restricts farmers’ agricultural freedom and limits economic opportunities for over 60,000 people employed by the industry, despite hemp being federally legal.”
“A vote for SB 5/HB5 infringes upon Texans’ rights to pursue agricultural enterprise and contradicts the state’s traditionally strong stance on limited government,” Swensen said, referencing THC prohibition bills in the special session.
The poll also shows that 62 percent of respondents would be more likely to vote for candidates who back hemp regulations, and that 56 percent say they will vote against lawmakers who support a prohibition.
The survey involved interviews with 600 likely Texas voters from July 24-27, with a +/-4.0 percentage point margin of error.
Meanwhile, Rep. Charlie Geren (R) introduced legislation on Monday that would provide a basic regulation for intoxicating cannabinoids, making it so only adults 21 and older could purchase the products.
It would do so by creating new criminal penalties for businesses that sell consumable cannabinoids to those under 21, as well as penalties for minors that attempt to buy them in violation of the law.
With the more controversial hemp ban bill from Sen. Charles Perry (R), time is running short in the special session. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) vetoed an earlier version of the controversial proposal, and he recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.
The special session started on July 21. Under the state constitution, special sessions cannot last longer than 30 days, meaning a quorum would need to be reestablished before August 20 if any bills are to move. Of course, nothing prevents the governor from calling another special session once that deadline passes.
At a press conference last month, a group of Democratic state senators introduced two new cannabis-related bills, including one that would regulate the hemp market, allowing adults 21 and older to purchase hemp products containing no more than 5 mg of THC per serving.
A second new bill would effectively legalize cannabis for adult use by removing criminal penalties for possession of up to two ounces of marijuana on a person and up to 10 ounces in a single household if it’s secure and out of sight. Cultivation of up to six plants, only half of which could be mature, would also be legalized.
The governor, who during the state’s regular legislative session this year vetoed a similar hemp product ban, SB 3, has also backed the idea of limiting THC potency and prohibiting sales to minors rather than outlawing products entirely.
Under the current Senate-passed proposal, consumable hemp products with any amount of THC—or any other cannabinoid besides CBD and CBG—would be illegal. Even mere possession would be punishable as a Class B misdemeanor, carrying up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.
Some advocates are hopeful that either SB 5 or its House counterpart could see revisions as they make their way through the legislative process—either to affirmatively regulate the hemp market or to at least ease some of the criminal penalties on individuals found in possession of the affected products.
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Meanwhile, Abbott in June signed a bill into law that expanded the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions, adding chronic pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, while also allowing end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care to use marijuana.
Separately, Rep. Nicole Collier (D) introduced a one-page bill, HB 42, designed to protect consumers in the state from criminal charges if what they believed was a legal hemp product turned out to contain excessive amounts of THC, making it illegal marijuana. It would prevent the criminalization of someone found in possession of a product that’s labeled as hemp but is determined to contain “a controlled substance or marihuana.”
In order for the person to obtain the legal protection, the product would need to have been purchased “from a retailer the person reasonably believed was authorized to sell a consumable hemp product.”
Another bill—HB 195, introduced by Rep. Jessica González (D)—would legalize marijuana for people 21 and older, allowing possession of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis, with no more than 15 grams of that amount being in concentrated form.
Yet another proposal would order state officials to conduct a study on testing for THC intoxication.
As for what Texans themselves want to see from their representatives, proponents of reining in the largely unregulated intoxicating hemp industry in Texas shared new polling data indicating that majorities of respondents from both major political parties support outlawing synthetic cannabinoids, such as delta-8 THC.
The survey also found that respondents would rather obtain therapeutic cannabis products through a state-licensed medical marijuana program than from a “smoke shop selling unregulated and untested hemp.”
Ahead of the governor’s veto in June of SB 3—the earlier hemp product ban—advocates and stakeholders had delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures asking Abbott to reject the measure. Critics argued that the industry—which employs an estimated 53,000 people—would be decimated if the measure became law.
