 The Texas state Supreme Court issued a ruling on June 24 which clarified that while individuals can possess, purchase and sell smokable hemp in Texas, they cannot process or manufacture it in the state.
After the 2018 Farm Bill passed to federally legalize hemp, the Texas Legislature passed regulation which put the state’s health department in charge of hemp. And one of their rules over hemp, was that the processing, manufacturing, distribution and sale of smokable hemp was prohibited in Texas. Several hemp companies sued to challenge the ban. In its ruling, the Texas Supreme Court wrote that they will uphold the health departments ban on processing and manufacturing smokable hemp. The court also referred to working in the smokable hemp field as something, (quote) “our society has long deemed ‘inherently vicious and harmful’ ”. For some reason though, the state did not uphold the ban on selling smokable hemp. So customers will still be able to purchase and possess it. However, customers will probably end up paying higher prices with the manufacturing and processing having to leave the state, and end up importing it back in. One of the lawyers who represented the hemp companies who were plaintiffs in this case, Chelsie Spencer, said, “…our economic expert found that the state will lose one million in tax revenue,” each year, from just one of the hemp manufacturers leaving, let alone all the others. Source from Cannabis Business Times Comments are closed.
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