Delta-8 hemp and Texas medical marijuana industries to face off within the upcoming legislative session

Join The Transient, The Texas Tribune’s every day publication that retains readers on top of things on essentially the most important Texas information.

---

Jack Stinnett acquired life-changing information in 2020 when he realized the lump that appeared on the aspect of his neck was tongue and mouth most cancers. He and his spouse Karen rapidly enrolled him at MD Anderson Most cancers Heart in Houston, the place he underwent 5 and a half rounds of chemotherapy and 33 therapies of radiation.

Throughout this time, Stinnett, a Marble Falls resident, went from a fairly wholesome 60-year-old who rode his bicycle greater than 60 miles every day to dropping greater than 100 kilos after dropping his urge for food and sense of style.

Then, Stinnett certified for a medical marijuana prescription for the nerve ache he acquired from the most cancers therapies and located the reduction he wanted.

“It helped with my appetite and sleep. This Compassionate Care Act, in my opinion, helps like no other,” he stated. “We just need politicians to get out of the way.”

Tales like this level to the successes of Texas’ Compassionate Use Program, however it’s going through its worst existential disaster since its inception in 2015. Strict guidelines on who’s eligible, what merchandise may be bought, and the place they are often saved have restricted this system’s impression, whereas unregulated hemp merchandise like delta-8 and the stronger delta-9 proceed to rise in demand attributable to ease of entry.

A possible showdown is brewing between the medical hashish market and the hemp business in Texas as each want to lawmakers to find out the long run.

States like Colorado and California, the place each medical and leisure marijuana are authorized, are placing tighter restrictions on hemp merchandise as a technique to rein in entry and pressure extra well being and security accountability on the business.

After his 2019 agricultural hemp laws helped open up Texas’s hemp business, state Sen. Charles Perry is now trying to shut it once more, as authorized weed-style merchandise have been by no means his intention. He urged an outright ban on the consumable hemp market final week throughout a State Affairs Committee listening to.

“’If you cannot regulate it, management it, and implement it, you simply do not permit it to occur,” Perry stated.

Perry and different lawmakers have been significantly eager about regulating consumable THC merchandise that may are available drink kind. This makes it way more tough for folks, academics, regulation enforcement, and others to inform the distinction between an everyday drink and one which has been infused with THC.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave senators a listing of legislative directives for the following session, and a main goal is a ban on delta-8 merchandise. He urged to lawmakers that the state look at the gross sales of intoxicating hemp merchandise in Texas, make suggestions to manage the sale of those merchandise, and suggest laws to cease retailers who market these merchandise to youngsters.

The Texas Division of State Well being Companies additionally filed a case earlier than the state’s Supreme Court docket in August to categorise delta-8 as an unlawful substance. Whereas the case is pending, delta-8 continues to be authorized to purchase and promote.

The Texas hemp business has argued in courtroom that delta-8’s excessive is minimal, and if delta-8 and delta-9 merchandise are banned, it will do irreparable hurt to the business and the state’s economic system.

“Any bans or excessive legislation of hemp-derived cannabinoids, as suggested by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and others, will negatively impact an industry that has an $8 billion economic impact, pays $1.6 billion in annual wages, and supports more than 50,000 workers,” stated Lukas Gilkey, CEO and co-founder of Hometown Hero, the corporate who filed a go well with towards the state and is defending the hemp business within the state’s Supreme Court docket.

The hemp conundrum 

David Bass, a retired U.S. Military veteran who was identified with PTSD, has been a proud consumer of the Compassionate Use Program and has heralded its advantages for veterans. Nonetheless, he stated his group, the Texas Veterans for Medical Marijuana, is staying impartial concerning a delta-8 ban attributable to what number of veterans use it.

“Of course, your typical consumer, in their mind, perceives it as the same product, and if it is cheaper and easier to access and equally as effective, then I can’t fault anybody,” Bass stated.

Whereas science doesn’t differentiate between hemp and marijuana, the regulation does. The time period “hemp” is used to imply hashish that comprises at most 0.3% THC content material by dry weight. Underneath the regulation, marijuana, which is against the law, refers to hashish that has greater than 0.3% THC by dry weight.

It’s authorized to purchase and use most smokable hemp merchandise, akin to flower or vape cartridges with CBD, THCA, and delta-8. The latter appears to be like, tastes, and typically intoxicates much like their stronger sibling marijuana — with no age limits, unfastened and inconsistent testing necessities, and no restrict on the variety of licenses allowed within the state.

Retail hashish dispensaries sprang up by the hundreds after the 2019 agricultural hemp laws—a bipartisan, farmer-friendly invoice—opened up the state’s hemp business and touched off an enormous new consumable hemp market in Texas as effectively.

Texas is now dwelling to greater than 7,000 registered consumable hemp retail spots — in gasoline stations, storefronts, bars, espresso retailers, strip malls, and cell trailers — promoting gummies, candies, drinks, and smokeables with low-dose tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

In the meantime, three medical dispensaries serve your entire state.

Bass stated hundreds of veterans in Texas now use hemp merchandise and have chosen them over the Compassionate Use Program as a result of they’re simpler to entry and cheaper. He stated some organizations like Hometown Hero have merchandising machines with delta-8 merchandise in Veterans of Overseas Wars services as a result of so many individuals on this demographic are utilizing this stuff to deal with their psychological well being.

“The medical marijuana program is highly regulated, and the medicine is more expensive than the hemp product, and you have to have a prescription and renew it every six months, and you have to drive all the way to the dispensary, so it’s a big challenge,” he stated.

The federal Meals and Drug Administration has warned in regards to the damaging well being impacts of unregulated hemp merchandise, akin to hallucinations, vomiting, anxiousness, and lack of consciousness, and have talked about this isn’t a secure various to marijuana.

In 2021, the Texas Division of State Well being Companies tried to ban delta-8 by classifying it as an unlawful substance.

Nevertheless, a hemp grower filed an injunction towards the state, and the ensuing lawsuit has been continuing by the courts.

Bass stated regardless of it by no means being the intent of Texas for authorized weed-like substances to be bought to the general public, now there are literally thousands of hemp merchandise that veterans are utilizing to deal with their PTSD, persistent ache, and extra, and it may be too far to return now.

“They tell me these products are perfectly safe, and they never had any bad experiences with this, and they are effective,” Bass stated of customers’ experiences.

A ban would additionally have an effect on farmers who develop hemp, the individuals who flip it into delta-8, and the retailers that promote it. These merchandise have an annual financial impression of $8 billion in Texas, in response to analysis from the Texas Hemp Enterprise Council.

An over-regulated program 

Shawn Collins’ complete world modified on Sept. 11, 2011 when he witnessed the dual towers collapse. He was working close to the Empire State Constructing, about three miles from floor zero, when his job despatched him dwelling for the day. The scars of the tragedy lingered for many years inside Collins’ thoughts.

Collins, who now lives in Austin, spent a few years battling undiagnosed PTSD and sleepless nights whereas making an attempt to lift a household. He self-soothed with alcohol and low till he obtained a medical marijuana prescription lately.

“It’s a miracle drug; it’s literally been life-changing,” Collins stated, including that he has researched delta-8, however hasn’t tried it. “I encourage those who might have a bias towards [medical marijuana] to speak to a therapist and let them tell you the benefits.”

Jervonne Singletary, neighborhood relations supervisor for Austin medical marijuana firm Good Mix, stated Texas is at a crucial juncture for the Compassionate Use Program as these within the business aren’t seeing the quantity of sufferers that have been anticipated.

“There are a lot of regulatory hurdles in the industry that make it a bit easier for folks to go to the delta-8 and delta-9 market,” Singletary stated. “Currently, we kind of have our hands tied behind our backs when it comes to what we can offer, and it has created a bit of unfair competition between us and delta-8 and delta-9 producers.”

Nico Richardson, CEO of Texas Authentic, a medical marijuana distributor in Cedar Park, stated many sufferers are additionally on the lookout for smokeable merchandise, and he can solely present edible or oil-based options. He stated this has contributed to his affected person numbers dropping significantly.

“It has became an absolute prepare wreck for the state, he stated.

In Texas, licensed medical hashish suppliers should home all operations, together with hashish cultivation, processing and extracting, manufacturing, testing, and dishing out, beneath one roof.

State rules additionally prohibit stock storage of medical hashish merchandise in a number of places, so merchandise have to be distributed from the central dispensary. Any prescriptions scheduled for pickup exterior the central dispensary have to be pushed every day to and from the pickup location—typically hundreds of miles roundtrip.

Richardson stated this has made their merchandise costlier, hampering the small medical hashish market in Texas. Business leaders are involved if one thing isn’t completed to steadiness the scales, the medical business will crumble.

Texas is one among a couple of dozen states that has not legalized marijuana in any kind for broad use. The state’s floundering medical marijuana program, the Compassionate Use Program run by the Texas Division of Public Security, has about 12,000 lively contributors out of almost 45,000 sufferers who’re registered, in addition to a brief listing of circumstances that will qualify a resident.

Texans with quite a lot of circumstances — akin to epilepsy, autism, most cancers and post-traumatic stress dysfunction — can entry hashish oil from marijuana vegetation with lower than 1% THC. Medical hashish can deal with the signs of a few of these illnesses or scale back the unwanted effects of different therapies.

“Right now, we estimate …there are over a million and a half who qualify, according to their physicians,” Singletary stated.

The medical marijuana business desires to scale back the price of working a medical dispensary whereas increasing the variety of circumstances to qualify for compassionate use, akin to anxiousness, persistent ache, and different intense bodily and psychological circumstances.

Singletary stated among the best options is increasing Texas’ medical hashish program, which might not solely present safer, regulated options but in addition curb the dominance of questionable hemp merchandise flooding the market.

“We want to talk to and work with the Legislature, and we’re really happy to have lawmakers who want to champion adding additional conditions to the program,” Singletary stated.

The showdown

Medical marijuana business leaders at the moment are main the cost to ban or regulate these delta-8 and delta-9 merchandise, and lawmakers are listening.

Whereas lawmakers may suppose that is a simple repair as there are solely two choices accessible for veterans — medical marijuana or hemp — there’s a extra ominous third possibility that may simply substitute each of them once more, and that’s the unlawful drug market, Bass stated

“The illicit drug market is large and has been used for years, so we have to be careful with our decisions,” Bass stated.

Whereas potential new legal guidelines threaten the delta-8 business, enterprise homeowners have instructed the Texas Tribune that they might welcome some common sense rules.

“We’re now seeing the hemp conversation not just in Texas, but nationally, show the pathway for how we can access this plant and really, ultimately help consumers who are seeking relief with cannabis products,” Shayda Torabi, president of the Texas Hemp Coalition, stated earlier this yr. “We’re watching and waiting to see what happens next.”

Nevertheless, what’s considered as common sense rules differs from individual to individual.

“It’s going to be a big issue this upcoming legislative session. It won’t get as much media attention as, say, school vouchers, but legislators will discuss it, and we hope some compromise can be made to preserve the Compassionate Use Program and at the same time don’t cut off hemp,” Bass stated.