Texas hemp industry hopeful to continue operation amid pause on THC ban
DALLAS - Smokable hemp products are back on the shelves in Texas for now after a judge ordered a pause to the ban. Exactly how long that will last is still unknown.
North Texas hemp sellers back in business
For business owners like Shan Claudio, who owns Dallas Hemp Company in East Dallas, recent months have been a roller coaster. For now, he says, his products are back on the shelf.
What they're saying:
"So they're saying, ‘oh, we got to regulate this. We're going to regulate this.' But then they try to put us out of business," Claudio said. "And made the regulatory system so egregious that it was essentially banned."
And that’s what the fight has been about: a crackdown on smokable THC products. The state says it's tightening the rules for how much THC can be in a hemp product, but stores say those rules are so tight it’s running them out of business.
Lawsuit and TRO
The judge’s Friday granting of a temporary restraining order (TRO) wasn’t just about the products, but about how the rules were made. An attorney involved in the filing of the original lawsuit, David Sergi, said he believes the state intended to "cut the heart out" of the business, and the judge put it back in.
The lawsuit argues that Texas regulators went too far and tried to change the law without lawmakers signing off.
And while those rules came from state agencies, business owners say this is also political, with Lieutenant Dan Patrick pushing for more restrictions even though governor Greg Abbott had already rejected an outright ban on THC products derived from hemp.
Sergi says the impact would have been massive.
What they're saying:
"With the testing requirements and the manufacturing requirements, they basically made smokable hemp almost impossible to produce legally and within the parameters, and so it cut out 80 to 90% of the market for smokable hemp," Sergi said.
Impact on industry
For some shops, like the Dallas Hemp Company, the effect was immediate.
"Without the TRO, we probably would have been shut down by Wednesday, and I've had to let go of people that have been with me for several years," Claudio said.
The judge's order only blocks the state's changes for two weeks, with another hearing set for late April.
"You're looking at close to 40,000 people that were at risk of losing their jobs," said Sergi. "And I know a lot of my clients that have stores were having to cut back," Sergi said.
The lawsuit isn’t just asking for a temporary pause, but a permanent one. The next hearing is scheduled for April 23.
The Source: Information in this article comes from interviews conducted by FOX 4 and previous FOX Local reporting.