Senate Bill 3 would make any product with THC, such as gummies and drinks, illegal to sell. Under current Texas law, hemp products are require to be contain less than 0.3 percent THC.
The state bill bans the sale of consumable hemp products that contain any cannabinoids other than cannabidiol or cannabigerol, two non-psychoactive cannabis derivatives.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) called the bill one of his “major” legislative initiatives, the Texas Tribune reported.
“I will not allow retailers to circumvent the law and put Texans’, especially children’s lives in danger,” he wrote in a statement shortly after the bill’s passage in the Senate.
In 2019, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law a bill that legalized the sale of hemp-derived extracts as long as they had no more than 0.3 percent THC. Under a 2018 bill signed by President Trump, a hemp product isn’t considered to be a controlled substance if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC.
Texas is not the only state that currently allows hemp products with low levels of THC to be sold. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight other states allow for the sale of low THC, high CBD products, including Tennessee, North Carolina and Iowa.
Following the passage of the Texas 2019 bill, the state saw a boom in hemp businesses with more than 7,000 hemp dispensaries and over 50,000 Texans employed in the industry by 2024.
But Texas state lawmakers have been gunning for a ban on low-THC products since they were introduced into the state, with Patrick having prioritized the issue since early 2024.
