Politics
Texas Voters Want Synthetic THC Outlawed, Poll Shared By Proponents Of Reining In Hemp Industry Finds
Proponents of reining in the largely unregulated intoxicating hemp industry in Texas shared new polling data on Wednesday indicating that majorities of respondents from both major political parties support outlawing synthetic cannabinoids, such as delta-8 THC, and would rather obtain therapeutic cannabis products through a state-licensed medical marijuana program than from a “smoke shop selling unregulated and untested hemp.”
The new survey comes as lawmakers, who convened for a special legislative session this week, reconsider banning all hemp products containing even trace amounts of THC and most other cannabinoids following a veto of similar legislation by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last month.
Conducted in June by the group Baselice and Associates, the newly shared survey found that 68 percent of Texas voters overall support a ban on synthetic or lab-produced THC products, including 78 percent of Republicans, 56 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents.
Respondents were asked, “California, Arkansas and Colorado have outlawed synthetic or lab-produced THC”—with some respondents also told that Congress is considering a ban—”Should Texas outlaw synthetic THC?”
A second question posed a hypothetical: “If you wanted to take something with THC in it to help with chronic pain, PTSD, or some other ailment, then would you rather get your THC products: From a state regulated, medical marijuana program with a doctor’s prescription OR From a smoke shop selling unregulated and untested hemp?”
Among all respondents—600 people in total—72 percent said they would prefer a regulated program, 16 percent said they’d rather go to a smoke shop and 12 percent said they were unsure.
By political party, 79 percent of GOP participants said they favored regulated medical marijuana dispensaries, as did 72 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents.
The poll was circulated on Wednesday in a press packet as part of a news conference at the Texas Capitol led by Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) and the state-licensed medical cannabis company Texas Original. A representative for Texas Original did not immediately respond to a question from Marijuana Moment inquiring about who commissioned the survey.
None one at Wednesday’s press event explicitly addressed the new polling data, though select charts were on display behind the speakers, who included Gutierrez, Texas Original CEO Nico Richardson and a patient and doctor registered under the Texas Compassionate Use Program, known as TCUP.
Gutierrez said at the event that he personally has “always been for a fully regulated—regulated—medical marijuana program and recreational program like we have seen in Colorado, California, Washington State” and others, but he argued that “in order to do that, we have to take the appropriate steps” to regulate or ban synthetic hemp products and halt their availability to minors.
“People at home need to be aware that there is zero age limit in obtaining this,” he said. “You can go to a convenience store right now, be a 14 year old kid and be able to buy a vape pen, and that simply is wrong.”
“All the science will tell you that that 14 year old is not ready for the introduction of cannabis into their body,” the senator continued. “And so we need to do better. And by doing better, we need to find a bill that has some regulation.”
Though the press conference was held just a day after a Senate committee advanced a new bill, SB 5, to outlaw possession, sales and other activity around all hemp products containing any detectable amount of THC or any other cannabinoid besides CBD and CBG, none of the speakers mentioned the measure or specifically called for its passage.
Gutierrez noted during a Q&A session that he voted in favor of SB 3, the hemp ban bill that lawmakers passed during the regular session and was later vetoed by the governor, but he claimed that was because he saw the measure as part of a tradeoff in exchange for expanding the state’s limited medical marijuana program, TCUP, through a separate bill that Abbott ultimately signed into law.
“We need to do better for this program,” he said. “We need to continue the expansion of TCUP and continue to find a…pathway for a completely regulated system—a tiered, regulated system like we have for alcohol.”
Regardless, he repeatedly emphasized that he felt the current situation—in which intoxicating hemp-derived products are widely available in the state—is unworkable.
“To do nothing, which is where we were when this veto began,” Gutierrez said, “is not a tenable situation for the youth of the state of Texas… We cannot have 13-year-old boys, 16-year-old girls, you name it, accessing cannabis with impunity.”
“This might sound strange from the guy that always wanted to legalize marijuana,” he acknowledged, “but we do have to do things appropriately and responsibly.”
Richardson, the Texas Original CEO, made a case at Wednesday’s press conference that the reason TCUP “works and is trusted by physicians and immunocompromised patients is because it is highly regulated,” allowing prescribing physicians and patients to be assured of a product’s purity and potency.
But he noted that stringent regulations in Texas cover the medical marijuana program, requiring that operators have badge access and surveillance systems at facilities, keep inventory in locked steel cages, pay to license and perform background checks on all employees, submit to state inspections, register products in advance of making them available to patients, submit to mandatory lab testing and comply with a host of other rules.
“By comparison,” Richardson said, “hemp-derived THC products do not have to abide by any of the regulations I just listed, even though most of the hemp products sold today in Texas are far more potent than what we are allowed to sell as TCUP medicine.”
The upshot, Richardson and other speakers said, is that untested, unregulated hemp products undercut licensed medical marijuana, ultimately putting patients at risk.
“No one should be surprised that a heavily regulated medical program cannot survive when it has to compete directly with an under-regulated recreational program selling the same or more intoxicating products,” the CEO said.
As lawmakers weigh whether to regulate intoxicating hemp products or ban them altogether, Abbott this week seemed to revise his own stance on the matter, apparently calling for regulated access to low-THC hemp items for adults.
Asked about the proposal, the governor told local media that he stands “in favor of doing all we can to protect the lives of our children, while also protecting the liberty of adults.”
“So the structure of what I’m looking for is this, and that is, we must continue to criminalize marijuana in the state of Texas—no change in the marijuana laws,” he said. “We need to ban THC, as well as hemp products, for children under the age of 21. We don’t want them to be exposed to that.”
He added that the state needs to “ban synthetics that are laced onto hemp products that are extraordinarily dangerous.” But once those safeguards are in place, the governor said, “we need to have a highly regulated hemp industry to ensure that farmers are able to grow it, and that hemp products that do not have an intoxicating level of THC on it and can be sold in the marketplace for adults to be able to use.”
Abbott gave a somewhat confusing definition of what he’d be comfortable with as far as allowable THC limits in hemp, saying there should be a “three percent” or “three milligram” cap, which is a meaningful difference. SB 5, on the other hand, would prohibit products with any quantifiable amount of THC or most other cannabinoids—explicitly exempting CBD and CBG from the ban, but industry stakeholders say that’s logistically unfeasible and would decimate the market.
“To be clear, with regard to adults—again, with minors, no access to it at all. For adults, we do want the THC level to be below 3 percent, or we’re doing it in milligrams, three milligrams of THC, and it’s called non-intoxicating levels of hemp that would be marketed,” he said.
Abbot further said that “every law enforcement official I’ve talked to has said the same thing, and that is, they don’t have the resources to regulate it… If they’re measuring the hemp product not based upon the current methodology, 0.3 percent THC, but on the milligram basis, it’s a whole lot easier to be able to measure it.”
Again, that’s not quite what SB 5 would accomplish—and stakeholders are voicing concern about the expedited legislative process that it’s moving through, urging supporters to contact their representatives and ask them to oppose the legislation.
“Even after hours of compelling testimony, the Senate State Affairs committee voted unanimously to approve SB 5, advancing the bill to the Texas Senate for a vote,” Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center, said in an action alert on Wednesday.
She added that the Senate meets on Thursday and “could vote on SB 5.” However, she added that once it reached the House, “representatives are much more inclined to support regulation.”
(Disclosure: Fazio supports Marijuana Moment’s work via a monthly Patreon pledge.)
Separately, a spokesperson for the governor issued a statement that largely aligns with what Abbott described in the interview.
“Governor Abbott has been clear that Texas must do all we can to protect the lives of children while protecting the liberty of adults. Hemp products should be banned for those under the age of 21, with a full ban on extraordinarily dangerous synthetic products,” they said. “Adults should be able to access heavily regulated, nonintoxicating levels of hemp, and there should be strict legal enforcement of hemp that exceeds 3.0 milligrams total THC per serving. The Governor will continue working with the legislature to establish a framework that meets those goals.”
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Meanwhile, response to questions from senators during Tuesday’s Senate committee hearing, most law enforcement speakers said they supported an all-out ban on hemp products containing any THC rather than attempts at regulation. Some later added, however, that they felt the state’s limited medical marijuana program, known as the Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP), should be expanded to ease access by patients—especially military veterans—who could benefit from therapeutic cannabis.
Notably, 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.
SB 5 is among a small handful of bills introduced for the new special session to address consumable hemp products.
Among the other proposals are measures to require extensive product warning labels and limit how hemp products are packaged.
Abbott has specifically asked lawmakers to prioritize hemp regulatory issues during the special session that kicked off on Monday. Two other newly introduced bills are HB 160 from Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson (D) and SB 39 from Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D).
The former would require a number of warning labels to be carried on hemp products with any more than trace amounts of THC, cautioning that the products can cause “cannabis poisoning that can be life-threatening to children,” harm brain development in youth, increase “risk of mental disorders like psychosis and schizophrenia” and lead to anxiety, depression and substance abuse disorders.
SB 39, meanwhile, would prohibit hemp products from being packaged or marketed “in a manner attractive to children,” limiting packaging shaped like humans, animals, fruit, cartoons or “another shape that is attractive to minors” as well as packaging that looks similar to legal products already marketed to children, for example candy or juice. It would also outlaw misleading product packaging. Violations would be a Class A misdemeanor, carrying up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
Separately, last week 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.”
The governor also said last month that rather than ban consumable hemp products outright, he wants to see lawmakers establish a regulatory framework that treats cannabinoids “similar to the way alcohol is regulated.”
Lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing said that criminalization of possession would only kick in on a person’s third offense, however that provision does not seem to be included in the current version of SB 5.
Ahead of the governor’s recent veto of SB 3, hemp advocates and stakeholders had delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures asking Abbott to reject the measure. Critics of the bill argued that the industry—which employs an estimated 53,000 people—would be decimated if the measure became law.
Texas lawmakers legalized the sale of consumable hemp in 2019, following enactment of the 2018 federal Farm Bill, which legalized the plant nationwide. That led to an explosion of products—including edibles, drinks, vape products and cured flower—now sold by an estimated 8,000 retailers.
Military veterans advocates, including Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars, also called on the governor to veto the hemp ban, saying it “would cause irreversible harm to communities across the state.”
Farmers said the prohibition would devastate a key sector of the state’s agriculture industry.
Following his veto, Abbott proposed an extensive list of policy changes that he said he would support—and which the legislature will have the chance to enact during the special session.
“Texans on each side of the Senate Bill 3 debate raise serious concerns. But one thing is clear—to ensure the highest level of safety for minors, as well as for adults, who obtain a product more dangerous than what they expected, Texas must strongly regulate hemp, and it must do so immediately,” Abbott said.
Part of the rationale behind his veto was the risk of litigation over “valid constitutional challenges” that he suggested would hold up in court. Multiple top Texas hemp companies had already filed a preemptive lawsuit challenging the legislation before the governor’s veto.
“If I were to allow Senate Bill 3 to become law, its enforcement would be enjoined for years, leaving existing abuses unaddressed,” Abbott said in his veto message. “Texas cannot afford to wait.”
Rather than face the possibility of having the law enjoined, or indefinitely delayed, the governor said the state “must enact a regulatory framework that protects public safety, aligns with federal law, has a fully funded enforcement structure, and can take effect without delay.”
Meanwhile, a recent survey from a GOP pollster affiliated with President Donald Trump showed that Texas Democratic and Republican voters are unified in their opposition to the hemp ban bill.
Another poll commissioned the Texas Hemp Business Council (THBC) found that Texas Republican primary voters oppose the proposal.
Last month, the governor signed bill to significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana program with new qualifying conditions additional product forms and more dispensary locations.
Abbott separately signed a bill into law to create a state-backed research consortium to conduct clinical trials on ibogaine as a possible treatment for substance use disorders and other mental health conditions. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop the psychedelic into a prescription drug with federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, with the state retaining a portion of the profit.
The measure expands the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions to include 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 in Texas, a House committee approved a Senate-passed bill in May that would prohibit cities from putting any citizen initiative on local ballots that would decriminalize marijuana or other controlled substances—as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from the state attorney general.
Under the proposal, state law would be amended to say that local entities “may not place an item on a ballot, including a municipal charter or charter amendment, that would provide that the local entity will not fully enforce” state drug laws.
While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws, an appellate court comprised of three conservative justices appointed by the governor has recently pushed back against two of those rulings, siding with the state in its legal challenge to the marijuana policy in Austin and San Marcos.
Despite the ongoing litigation and advancement of the House and Senate bills, Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city, Kyle, where they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana reform at the ballot this coming November.
A recent poll found that four in five Texas voters want to see marijuana legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around cannabis relaxed.
Read the full press packet, including the new poll results, from Wednesday’s event below:
