[[{“value”:”Avery Mack has complex regional pain syndrome, a chronic condition that causes “excruciating” pain to run through the 12-year-old’s body daily. Her only reprieve is certain hemp products, but she may soon lose access to the only effective pain management she has found. On April 7, the disabled preteen wheeled herself to the mic stand in front of the Committee of State Affairs at the Texas Capitol to advocate against Senate Bill 3,a proposal to ban all THC products from the state.
“I rely on various hemp products every day to manage my condition. Some help lower the constant burning sensations I feel, while others ease the electrifying jolts that shoot up and down my spine every day,” she said to the committee. “Without these products, I would not be where I am today.”
Avery told the committee that just a few years ago, she was on the swim team, danced in the Nutcracker and enjoyed a full and active life as an able-bodied child. But in a span of months, the pain became so intense she couldn’t even go to school. After years of remedy seeking, she started taking nonintoxicating hemp products, and for the first time, Avery could return to the halls of her middle school. She looks forward to competing in her first Paralympic Games soon, thanks to the help of hemp products.
Avery is one of the youngest spokespersons of a large community that would become collateral damage to the passage of SB 3. Also affected, and largely overlapping with the disabled community, are veterans who rely on hemp products to deal with the long-term effects of service.
Veterans frequently receive powerful, addictive pain medications and antidepressants from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, says Robert Head, a veteran and founder of Hemp For Victory, a Carrollton-based nonprofit that educates on the relationship between veterans and cannabis. “The cannabis, THC, and the psychedelics that we’re seeing emerge in the United States replace those pills for vets.”
Pain management can be a slippery slope for the 1.5 million veterans living in Texas, Head says. THC and hemp products emerge as an easy solution for those whose pain is too severe for over-the-counter ibuprofen but are wary of highly addictive opioids.
The VA has been on a years-long project to reduce the number of veterans prescribed opioids, cutting the number by two-thirds between 2012 and 2023, according to a press release from the organization. But Head warns that a full THC ban could force some veterans to return to Schedule II substances. He says in some instances, veterans from states without fully legalized recreational marijuana are forced to turn to pharmaceuticals when they can’t find dispensaries and dealers.
“They’re going to go back to the prescriptions, and that might be dangerous in itself as well,” he said. “It might make their matters worse. I’ve had people who have called me from my own units that are just devastated because they’re back on the pills. They moved to Texas, they’re back on the pills [because] they couldn’t find anybody.”
Head warns of the alternative option presented to veterans, illegal sourcing.
“The problem with SB3 is it puts a ban on [THC], and that’s going to force a lot of people to the black market, which is already flourishing in Texas,” he says. “This makes criminals out of a lot of vets because now they’re going to have to find ways to get it.”
Low-concentration hemp products have been available in Texas since Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1325 in 2019. But a poorly written law leaves massive loopholes that bad actors have manipulated, meaning that obtaining hemp products with THC concentrations far exceeding the legal limit is not difficult.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has spearheaded the effort to ban THC in Texas, threatening to force a special session if the bill does not pass. Having named it his primary concern before the session, Patrick says the products directly threaten children who unwittingly consume high-potency products.
“Dangerously, retailers exploited the agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of THC to the public and made them easily accessible,” Patrick said in a press release. “These stores not only sold to adults, but they targeted Texas children and exposed them to dangerous levels of THC.”
Experts in the industry generally agree with Patrick that unethical companies prioritize profit over safety, but disagree with him regarding the solution.
“The concerns that Lieutenant Governor Patrick has, I have the same concerns, but we can solve that problem without the ban,” says Head.
Though there are legitimate risks associated with falsely advertised products with misleading packaging, Patrick and other outspoken opponents of THC have perhaps sensationalized the threat. Allen police Chief Steve Dye, who has taken the drive down to Austin several times to testify before the Legislature about the dangers of hemp products and has led several smoke-shop raids looking for illegal products, recently falsely claimed two Allen residents died after overdosing on THC.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, there have been zero recorded deaths related to THC overdose. Still, they do report that there is an increasing number of emergency room visits from stronger-than-expected edibles.
“I don’t really know why this such a big issue all of a sudden,” Head says. “It might be just because somebody reported that there’s a high rise of kids going to the emergency rooms. And that is a problem that can be solved through regulation, but not through banning.”
“}]] A hotly debated bill to ban hemp products would have significant adverse effects on the disabled and veteran communities. Read More
