Confusion of Texas cannabis laws bubble as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposes THC ban

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick pushing forth a proposal to ban all forms of THC in Texas is getting negative reviews.

Social media has been lighting up over the news, which first broke on Wednesday. There are more than a thousand comments on ABC13’s Instagram post, and the vast majority oppose it.

At the center of this debate are dispensaries like the THC Club. There are more than a dozen locations in Houston, and all of them were raided because police say they were selling THC products above the legal threshold.

Under current law, marijuana can be sold legally if it contains .03% or less THC, which is what gets a user high.

SEE RELATED: Texas lawmakers will move to ban ‘all forms’ of consumable THC next year, Lt. Gov. announces

That sounds confusing, and it is, which is why this conversation keeps coming up.

“I think the fact that there is a legislative push right now underscores the issue,” criminal defense attorney Cordt Akers said.

Akers is currently representing the THC club, a Houston-based cannabis business, who according to prosecutors took advantage of the legal loopholes.

“There’s really no such thing as loopholes in the law. There’s just the law and how it is written. If people want to change the law, then that is supposed to be done in Austin,” Akers said. “It is not supposed to be done in criminal cases.”

Patrick announced he is launching Senate Bill 3, an effort to ban all forms of consumable THC from being sold.

In the announcement he said, “Dangerously, retailers exploited the agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of THC to the public and made them easily accessible.”

“We didn’t ever aim for it to be legal in Texas, but it is kind of the end around through things that aren’t covered by our current legislation, like Delta 8 and Delta 9 are out there, which are basically the same thing as recreational marijuana,” agriculture commissioner Sid Miller said.

Miller agrees with Patrick’s proposal. Both say it would have no effect on the state’s medical marijuana program.

What they are targeting is the recreational stuff, and what’s called THC-A, another derivative of cannabis. According to court records, that’s what was sold at the THC club.

Multiple marijuana experts ABC13 spoken to say THC-A is legal until it’s heated up, and the law doesn’t address that.

“How can you hold a company that sells a product pursuant to the law responsible for what someone does to that product after they sell it?” State Rep. Rolanda Jones said.

Jones disagrees with how the current law is being enforced and worries an all-out ban could bring trouble.

“We are literally going to be creating criminals for something that can be done safely,” Jones said.

In the case with the THC club, investigators said the product was tested with a heating method and showed to be above the legal limit.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Hayes said business owners knew they were breaking the law and assumed they’d get away with it.

“Local law enforcement doesn’t always know how to enforce this kind of illegal activity, and so now the business owners are capitalizing on the fact that they know law enforcement is not going to enforce it,” Hayes said.

“Our position and the position of the THC club is we know we aren’t breaking the law; that’s why people like Dan Patrick want to change it,” Akers said.

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