Texan legislators’ voter-opposed, politician-approved push to ban hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) merits far greater scrutiny than it seems to have received. On May 27, 2025, the state’s House of Representatives signed Senate Bill 3, which the state’s Senate had signed the day prior. As of this article’s publication, Senate Bill 3 awaits passage or veto – or default passage sans veto – by Gov. Greg Abbott by June 22, 2025. 

If the bill becomes a law, THC compounds previously excluded from legislation – notably but not limited to delta-8 THC – will become included in legislation currently banning only delta-9 THC. As superficial as that might sound, this change will have a ripple effect that will shock the state’s economy and job market, as we explain here. 

The reasons given to justify sacrificing 40,000 jobs, 6,300 businesses, nearly $300 million in tax revenues and over $10 billion in total economic activity will blow your mind more than THC ever could. Read on to see what’s going on in the Lone Star State. 

Fast Answers: Key Sections of Senate Bill 3

For those new to Texan legislators’ war on THC, here are some fast answers to commonly asked questions about Senate Bill 3. The excerpts below are taken directly from the version of Senate Bill 3 that is awaiting Gov. Abbott’s signature, veto or implicit approval (i.e., neglect until the waiting period expires). The full text, as of this article’s publication, is available to read and download here. That link and the document’s availability are subject to change without Head Magazine’s knowledge.

  • What does Senate Bill 3 affect? It affects consumable hemp products and the hemp-derived cannabinoids contained in those products. (p. 1)
  • What is the bill’s definition of a “consumable hemp product”? A food, drug, device or cosmetic that contains hemp or one or more hemp-derived cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG). (p. 1)
  • Will CBD and CBG become illegal if the bill becomes a law? No. A license holder may not manufacture a consumable hemp product that contains any amount of a cannabinoid other than CBD or CBG (p. 2), and a consumable hemp product that contains any amount of a cannabinoid other than CBD or CBG may not be sold at retail or otherwise introduced into commerce in Texas (p. 4). 
    • Author’s Note 1: If this bill becomes a law, CBD and CBG products will likely become exponentially more expensive due to a spike in scarcity from massive reductions in cannabis farming, manufacturing, distribution and retail. So, they’ll still be legal, but it won’t be life as usual for CBD and CBG consumers in Texas, as many will no longer be able to afford these products. Here’s an analogy: If there were only four stores that sold water, and three were driven out of business, the price of water at the only place you could buy it would skyrocket due to the shift in the ratio of supply-to-demand.
    • Author’s Note 2: The original version of this bill did aim to ban CBD, possibly because of its use as a source for synthesizing delta-8 THC. This is evident in the tracked changes in the current version of the bill. Search the word “cannabidiol” in the Word or PDF file available on the official site if you’re curious about it.

If Senate Bill 3 becomes a law, CBD and CBG products will remain legal, but consumers might not be able to afford them anymore./Photo by GB The Green Brand:/pexels.com

The Delta-8 Legal Loophole: Getting High on Cannabis Without Breaking the Law

In line with the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp at the federal level, Texas legalized hemp at the state level in 2019 with House Bill 1325. The bill authorizes the production, manufacturing, retail sale and inspection of industrial hemp crops and products, including products for consumable hemp products containing CBD, as well as other edible parts of the hemp plant. In both legislative systems, “hemp” refers to cannabis plants that contain less than 0.3% delta-9 THC by weight. Delta-9 THC is cannabis’s major and most potent psychoactive compound, and good weed contains between 10% and 20% delta-9 THC. 

Another THC compound in cannabis is delta-8 THC. This compound has milder psychoactive effects (roughly half as strong as delta-9), and only small amounts of it (typically less than 0.1% by weight) occur naturally in cannabis. Perhaps for those reasons, delta-8 THC was not targeted in federal and state laws against THC, and it did not become a controlled substance. 

Texans might lose the freedom to make their own decisions concerning their consumption of products containing delta-8 THC, a substance that even the federal government has kept legal./Photo by Elsa Olofsson/Flickr.com/CC BY 2.0

So, as long as you’re under the influence of delta-8 THC and not delta-9 THC, you’re obeying the law (although that might change). Seizing the glaringly obvious opportunity, suppliers squeezed that miniscule amount of delta-8 THC out of legal cannabis plants (i.e., hemp), supplemented it with CBD converted synthetically into delta-8 THC, and generated the legal equivalent of a delta-9 THC high to meet consumer demands. 

The same is true of any product ever produced: If consumers want it, suppliers will find a way to deliver it and profit off of it, no matter what politicians’ opinions are of the product. You can’t legislate consumer demand; Prohibition proved that spectacularly.

Products optimizing the effects of delta-8 THC emerged as dictated by universal laws of supply and demand once political laws interfered with the natural order, which we explain in our analysis of delta-8 THC. /Image credit: fokusiert/123rf.com

State legislators go against what 72% of Texan voters want while acting as their representatives.

As might be expected, politicians objected to this circumvention of their laws. In Texas, legislators went so far as to reassert their will by naming delta-8 THC a Schedule I controlled substance. It’s clear that that’s what the politicians want, but what about the people these politicians are supposed to be representing? Do Texan voters want delta-8 THC banned? 

Only 17% of them do, and 72% oppose the move entirely. Of note, even the conservatives’ survey results speak loudly: 2 times as many Republicans favor keeping THC legal and regulated than favor banning it (57%-to-29%). For Democrats, that ratio rises to 8 times as many voters favoring keeping THC legal and regulated than favoring banning it (80%-to-10%). When you limit THC consumption to medical marijuana, you get nearly 80% of voters  in favor of it, including 75% of Republicans and 86% of Democrats.

Nearly three-fourths of Texan voters are being silenced by the latest move made by their “representatives” in Austin./ Photo of Texas Senate Chamber by Wally Gobetz/Flickr.com/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Legislators prove that no sacrifice is too great in the war on THC – not even the state’s economy and job market.

Tens of thousands of Texans stand to lose their jobs if the bill becomes a law and goes into effect in September 2025. Also, the state stands to lose billions of dollars in economic activity. More specifically, as a March 2025 study by Whitney Economics found:

  • Roughly 6,350 of the 8,500 businesses (75%) in this industry will fail.
  • More than 40,000 of the 53,300 workers (75%), representing $1.6 billion in wages, will be let go.
  • Economic activity in the state will be reduced by over $10.2 billion.

Businesses involved in the hemp-derived cannabinoid industry generate approximately $5.5 billion in revenue, along with $267.7 million in sales tax revenue for the state, and most hemp is sourced from local farmers. The mere introduction of this bill has already hurt not only Texans but also all Americans by creating an environment of uncertainty. The same study cited found that:

  • A lack of investment in and deployment of hemp infrastructure reduced the economic potential of the U.S. hemp industry by $20 to $25 billion in 2024 for fiber and grain alone. 
  • Uncertainty at the state level has reduced acreage and business licenses, limiting cultivation capacity.
  • The lack of acreage may result in a supply constraint in 2025 or 2026 that will limit the growth of the U.S. cannabinoid industry, potentially forcing U.S. manufacturers to source raw materials from outside the United States (notably, from China).

Surely, there must be a good reason for scorching the earth to close a single legal loophole …

The above data, which doesn’t even account for the expansive destruction that lies beyond revenue and employment, should provide a compelling argument in opposition to Senate Bill 3. And yet, mysteriously, it doesn’t.

Why not? What’s pushing Texan politicians so hard to categorically ban THC, even if doing so not only isn’t what 72% of voters want, but also will needlessly trash the economy and have ripple effects beyond anything measurable in dollars? Why would all of that damage be worth it?

Here are the two leading justifications given by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the activist at the root of Senate Bill 3, along with his backers.

Claim 1: Retailers of THC-infused consumables are actually fronts for criminal organizations that are dealing federal contraband.

In August 2024, police raided nine hemp retailers across northern Texas based on lab results from the retailers’ products that revealed an illegal percentage of THC. The raids were highly publicized and were frequently cited while pushing legislation on banning THC, citing these retailers as examples of organized crime.

What’s interesting is how those lab results came about.

Investigative journalist Jay Maguire of “Texas Hemp Reporter” exposed rigged testing in his article “Bad Science, Political Raids, and the Setup Behind SB 3.” His key findings are:

  • The results were skewed by using a testing method that actually converts non-psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCa) into delta-9 THC, increasing the amount of the very thing it’s attempting to measure.
  • The Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) said not to use that method, but the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) did anyhow.
  • The DPS had to go out of its way to find a lab that still uses that unreliable testing method, as most labs don’t use a method that even the federal government won’t use, and the lab the DPS chose is one that the TFSC had investigated in July 2021 for unreliable THC-measuring methods.

Maguire provides extensive detail, including a now-retracted report formerly available as a PDF file here, issued by the TFSC. In that report, the commission is very clear in telling the government not to use that particular testing method to measure THC, and why. Oddly enough, that report is the only one that the TFSC doesn’t provide online like it does for the dozens of other reports on the same webpage. 

Granted, that’s only one example, but it can easily be interpreted as constituting a microcosm of the way this is being orchestrated at a higher level. If it weren’t, the report wouldn’t have been pulled one week after Maguire’s story broke. 

Justification 1: “It’s worth torching the economy and job market to make sure that retailers can’t sell products whose THC content exceeds 0.3% when measured with nonstandard testing methods that increase the amount of THC in the products during testing.”

THC isn’t created until you’ve applied heat to THC’s precursor, THCa, which is what the unreliable THC testing method did for the retailers whose products were deemed illegal. Read our scientific summary of this chemical process in our article on the numerous health benefits of consuming raw cannabis leaves.

Claim 2: If THC-infused consumables remain legal, children will be able to get them.

As if auditioning for an exploitation film like “Reefer Madness” (1936), Lt. Gov. Patrick said of hemp retailers: “These are bad actors. These are people who want to kill your kids, and they don’t give a damn. So, we’ll fight this all the way.” 

Usually, if access is a problem though, regulation is the solution, not prohibition. Moreover, plenty of unhealthy things target kids with their advertising and ingredients, but entire industries aren’t dismantled instead of simply controlling access to these things. Alcohol and cigarettes are obvious examples of that at a comparable scale. 

But there are far more industries that target and damage kids that aren’t regulated in that regard at all, such as energy drinks with ingredients proven to cause brain damage. On a far greater scale, consider fast food, which has ingredients that cause: 

  • Atopic disorders (e.g., asthma, eczema)
  • Addiction
  • Impaired academic performance
  • Depression
  • Insomnia
  • Hyperactivity
  • Diabetes
  • Heart disease 

The United Nations study “The State of the World’s Children,” after detailing fast-food-induced malnutrition, notes: “Malnutrition during … early childhood can adversely affect brain development, affecting cognition, school readiness, behaviour and productivity into the school-age years and beyond.”

As relates to child-targeted advertising, the same study observes:

“Marketing, packaging and aspirational status symbols have a seductive pull on all consumers, but adolescents are especially influenced by these factors. Fast food and prepared snacks are widely available in urban areas worldwide and can be especially appealing to young people. … Advertisements, food packaging that attracts children and digital campaigns all stimulate a preference for, and consumption of unhealthy food – particularly fast food.”

If child safety is the issue, THC is a somewhat arbitrary focal point, really.

Fast food can legally be sold to children, despite what its ingredients have been clinically proven to do to children’s bodies, but that version of child endangerment is politically acceptable. /Photo by Caleb Oquendo/pexels.com

As “The Texas Tribune” reported, the hemp industry supported an alternative to the ban that would have restricted THC products to Texans 21 and older, barred sales within a certain distance of schools and outlawed marketing the products in ways that are attractive to children. In another article, the same news outlet shared that aging Texans, veterans and parents of children with mental illness or special needs had spoken out about the benefits of hemp, including the ease of access, the variety of products available to them and the lower price. With legitimate support for the products, and with retailers both willing and proactive in aiming to close the loophole with regulation, this seems like a desirable and feasible solution. 

Interestingly, those same retailers have actually been trying to do this for years. In an interview with KPRC in Houston, Adyson Howard, owner of the Wild Concepts dispensary, explained her own struggle: 

“For several [legislative] sessions now, we’ve actually been trying to get these products regulated and controlled better. We would love for there to be a strong age gate on it and strict guidelines that regulate what kind of packaging you can put these products, that definitely do not attract children. And, if there are a few bad actors out there, we’re all for increasing regulation and eliminating those people from our industry.”

Head Magazine provides a balanced and exhaustive analysis in our feature “Pros and Cons of Marijuana Legalization,” explaining the above proposals and other factors./Photo by Elbert Barnes via Creative Commons /CC by-SA 2.0 Deed

When confronted with that common-sense solution, Lt. Gov. Patrick doubled down on deflecting logic: “We can’t regulate it. We don’t have enough police to check every store, when there are 8,000-9,000 of them.” Apparently, he’s been keeping a new regulatory system secret: regulation via on-site inventory-wide inspections by law enforcement officers. So, there aren’t enough police for this because the police are busy doing this at every store that sells alcohol, cigarettes and anything else that’s dangerous for kids instead – right? If that’s how regulation works, then that’s a reasonable assumption.

It gets better still though. In that same interview, Lt. Gov. Patrick said, “We don’t want anybody buying anything off the shelf that could kill them or ruin their mental state for the rest of their lives.” If only perfectly safe things are allowed to be sold, what could anyone possibly sell? Cars? Nope. Steak knives? Nope. Beer? Nope. Cigars? Nope. And so on. That self-righteous claim is devoid of thought, let alone logic.

Far more important though, he’s completely ignoring the way supply and demand will level out if THC is banned. Will people suddenly stop buying THC if it’s illegal? No. What they will do is find alternative (i.e., illegal) ways to get what they want. And not one of those ways comes with a built-in system of testing, accountability and penalty. So, in his mighty, benevolent effort to rescue Texan children, he’s endangering all Texans by handing them over to the emergence (more likely, growth) of the THC illicit market. 

Justification 2: “It’s worth obliterating 75% of an $8 billion industry, including its employees and the consumers who rely on it, so that children won’t get access to its products.”

Conclusion

Although the people’s representatives are adamant about fining and imprisoning their constituents if these constituents behave as they choose rather than as their representatives dictate, one can’t help but question their zeal. The claims they’re making to justify their hyper-destructive campaign against THC don’t hold up under scrutiny, and they’re lucky that no one of importance to them is scrutinizing them. Voters can object and point out the obvious, but they’re clearly not in any kind of position to persuade their “representatives,” or Senate Bill 3 never would have landed on the governor’s desk.

When the forces of supply and demand clash with the forces of politics, the former will always defeat the latter, whether the political deities approve or not. Rather than pretending that these forces will contort themselves into an unnatural permission-based system, legislators would do well to accommodate these forces. Focus on supply, yes, but from the standpoint of working with it, not against it. It’s abundantly clear that there’s a demand for THC, so involvement in how that supply is met – not whether that supply is met – is what will achieve the legislators’ (putative) goals.   

Kathleen Hearons is a writer, editor, linguist and voice over actor from Los Angeles. She specializes in creative writing and research-intensive analysis and reporting.

 

 

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