Six years ago, Texas lawmakers opened a door to a new lifeline for farmers: growing hemp. Farmers invested time, money and land into growing the drought-resistant crop and developing the state’s budding hemp industry.
The same lawmakers are now slamming the door shut. All products containing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, could soon be banned in Texas. As a result, farmers are bracing for impact as they wait to go out of business.
“We wouldn’t be in the hemp business in a million years if they hadn’t passed that bill,” said Ann Gauger, co-owner of Caprock Family Farms in Lubbock. “Now we’re one of the largest hemp producers in the U.S., and their ban is going to shut that down.”
The Texas hemp industry, in its current form, has effectively been handed a death sentence with the upcoming passage of Senate Bill 3, authored by Lubbock Republican Sen. Charles Perry. On Sunday, the Legislature sent the bill, which bans consumable hemp products that contain even trace amounts of THC, to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. However, hemp can’t be produced without traces of THC, farmers say, regardless of the product.
The plant has been a target for lawmakers since the start of the legislative session, with the charge led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Patrick pulled out all the stops to make the ban pass, including with surprise visits to dispensaries in Austin and vows for a special session if it failed. Patrick and Perry say the hemp industry exploited a loophole in the bill that did not establish a threshold for hemp derivatives, other than delta-9 THC.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has also walked back his opposition to an outright ban on THC, now aligning with Patrick’s position. He deleted a post on X where he called the THC ban a “sledgehammer” to farmers, and now Miller said the bill will not be detrimental to farmers. Miller said the hemp industry will thrive as it’s moving toward producing industrial hemp, a fiber type of hemp that does not contain THC. It could be used in construction materials, rope and more. He said they never intended to have THC available across Texas, and called it a dangerous situation.
“This just puts us back to where we started,” Miller told The Texas Tribune. “It’s going to be detrimental to a lot of businesses that have opened their business model on selling THC products. Those businesses will have to shut.”
In lawmakers’ pursuit of a ban, growers like Gauger were caught in the crosshairs. Gauger, who runs the business with her husband and two sons, felt ignored by most of the Legislaturestate leaders. Gauger says they did everything they could to get lawmakers to hear them over the last few months and testified to the House committee overseeing the bill. It did not work.
“Charles Perry says he has an open door policy. That is an absolute lie,” Gauger said. “We live in his district, and he will not see us. We’ve gone to his office in Austin, but he refuses to see us.”
Gauger said House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, and his team were the only ones to speak with the family. Kyle Bingham is another frustrated hemp grower in the South Plains that took a chance on growing the crop. Bingham, who is also president of the Texas Hemp Growers Association, called the bill overreaching and unenforceable. He also said lawmakers involved in writing the bill ignored farmers during the process. Bingham is one of Perry’s constituents.
“We were left out of this conversation,” Bingham said. “Yes, you can go to public hearings, but not having a lot of say and being stonewalled out of the initial bills was frustrating.”
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Bingham said he’s now considering what to do in September when the bill is slated to go into effect. Any products he still has with THC will either have to be sold by then or he will be burning it. He’s going to focus more on cotton and wheat, even though he wanted hemp to be in their rotation of crops.
Gauger is expecting a downfall for the hemp industry across Texas. Just like growers have to consider the legal consequences, the same applies for retailers and grocery stores that sell consumable hemp products. This includes hemp hearts, hemp seed oil, and even some big brands — KIND bars have a line of granola bars that contain hemp seeds.
See here and here for the background. I’m going to say the same thing I’ve said to the consumers, retailers and now growers of these products: You should be mad at Dan Patrick, and you should take that anger out on Dan Patrick in next year’s election. He was very clear about what he intended to do, and in doing so he not only bulldozed any resistance from House Republicans, he also rolled over the likes of Sid Miller, who started out in support of hemp farmers but folded like a lawn chair when Patrick strong-armed him. (You should also be mad at Sid Miller, in case that’s not clear.) Will these folks remember to be mad next year? I don’t know. Would it help if statewide Democratic candidates, especially those running against Dan Patrick and Sid Miller talked to them, campaigned for and with them, and reminded them regularly why they should be mad? I think so. Now we just need that to happen.
Zealots do not care whom they hurt, as long as they hurt someone, and the more, the merrier. These ghouls do not work for you.
S, for the more informed than I, what are the odds that Abbott vetoes this? Does he want to be responsible for more unemployed, the loss of revenue?
I thought these ghouls believed in the free market. This seems to be the opposite of that.
There were no consequences for the failure of the power grid in Feb 2021. Or the school massacre in Uvalde in May 2022. I’m not holding my breath here.
Legalizing weed is one of the few things that mobilizes turnout among under-35s.
Unfortunately, punishing an official or party for something they did 18 months before the election definitely is not.