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Metro
METROPOLIS
Smokable Hemp Banned in Texas? Smoke ’em if you got ’em. Hemp cigarettes and CBD vape pens may soon be verboten in Texas.
BY EDWARD BROWN
Since the legalization of hemp farming in Texas last year, politicians and law enforcement officials have struggled with a straightforward problem: how to tell if someone is lighting up a joint with THC (the illegal psychoactive agent in marijuana) or CBD (the legal medicinal agent found in hemp).
HB 1325, the 2019 state bill that legalized hemp farming in Texas, allowed for the sale of smokable hemp products but did not allow for the manufacture of pre-rolled hemp and other smokable hemp products in Texas. To untrained eyes, hemp and marijuana buds basically look and smell the same. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is preparing to rule on a proposed ban on smokable hemp, and hemp supporters are sounding the alarm.
The health benefits of CBD are well documented. Many children and adults use the non-psychoactive drug to control seizures or to manage chronic pain, among many other uses.
Tim Blackwell said the proposal will effectively strangle Texas’ new hemp market. The owner of Fort Worth-based Zen Alchemy Labs, which specializes in CBD products, said smokable hemp has many advantages for people who struggle with chronic pain and anxiety.
When smoked, CBD “is absorbed into your lungs and directly into your bloodstream,” he said. “Ingested CBD products are damaged by stomach acids and filtered by the liver.”
Blackwell said 50% of his customers buy hemp flowers, largely for smoking purposes.
Courtesy of Depositphotos
To the untrained eye, hemp looks a lot like marijuana.
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Bartleby Is Dead Though we had worked for the same company for two years, I didn’t know him very well. He kept to himself. I don’t know what he thought of me, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of him. He was just a guy who came to work, almost like Melville’s scrivener Bartleby. In fact, that’s what I’ll call him for now. Bartleby.
I got the impression that life had not been easy or very kind to Bartleby, but he was always easy to deal with and kind to me. And always respectful. His father died not long after he first came to work with us, and in the last year or so, his best friend passed as well. He had a daughter who was attending a local college, and he was very proud of her — but I didn’t know her name. He preferred bowling to golf — on that, we both agreed. Neither of us was really “frat boy” material. Oh, and Bartleby had a nice smile. We didn’t see it often, but it was nice. Beyond that, I didn’t know much about him.
Last week, however, I heard something that I couldn’t process. And I didn’t hear it from him.
Bartleby was in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter Smith Hospital. He’d had open-heart surgery, and half his skull had been removed to relieve the pressure on his brain. One of his eyeballs had been shot out. He might never recover. He might never wake up.
News stories said four Haltom City police officers responded to a “shots fired” report in the 2300 block of McGuire Avenue. In the middle of their “response,” Bartleby “came around the corner of McGuire Avenue and Nina Lane” in his grandmother’s compact sedan. It’s been said that Bartleby stopped in the middle of the road — presumably when he saw the Haltom City police cars — and yelled at the officers. It’s also been said that he then went to his trunk and took something out of it. According to the Dallas Morning News, “Authorities didn’t specify what the item was.”
Finally, it’s been alleged that Bartleby got back into his grandmother’s compact sedan and began “driving toward the officers.” Four of the Haltom City police department’s finest opened fire on Bartleby. He was struck by several bullets, and it’s been said that his grandmother’s compact sedan veered into a telephone pole. But in the pictures, at least, it looks like it rolled to a stop at the nearest curb.
I’d like to see the dashcam or officer camera footage of the incident.
Even though Bartleby and I weren’t very close, I’d like to know what really happened. Bartleby wasn’t a gun nut. Bartleby didn’t strike me as a troublemaker, much less a cop killer. In fact, he didn’t seem the least bit confrontational — even when others were confrontational with him. On top of all that, he’d just gotten a raise and seemed genuinely thrilled.
The newspaper and television reports almost suggest a scenario that resembles the last sequence in The Vanishing Point (1971), where the antihero protagonist barrels full-speed into bulldozer blades the police have lined across the street to stop him. But I don’t believe it. Bartleby was just a guy I worked with.
What it seems like is that Haltom City cops responded to a “shots fired” complaint and found somebody to shoot. I suspect that is the story behind the headlines that the Haltom City police dictated. The problem for them, I think, is that Bartleby lived on Nina Lane. He was probably leaving his house to run an errand or trying to return to his house after visiting a grocery store. I don’t think he had any idea what he was driving into.
Bartleby is dead now. His funeral date isn’t set because this man the police assumed was dangerous driving down the street in his grandmother’s compact sedan was an organ donor.
That news doesn’t surprise me. That’s the kind of guy I think Bartleby was.
Bartleby was the last person I ever expected to perish in a hail of gunfire. In fact, I think if I’d have asked him if he would have liked to be mistaken for a threat and gunned down in cold blood by the Haltom City police on Memorial Day weekend, I am certain he would have responded just like Melville’s Bartleby. I envision him saying calmly and politely, “I would rather not.”
Bartleby’s name was James Milligan, Jr. — E.R. Bills
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“Hemp is still very new in Texas,” Blackwell said, and lawmakers “are stifling it before it has a chance to get off the ground.”
Last March, the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) began accepting applications for hemp-growing licenses and permits. That step allowed Texas to join 46 states and a global $4.7 billion industry. According to data provided by the TDA, as of late May, 19 hemp licenses have been granted to businesses located within Tarrant County. There are three outstanding applications in the county. The 22 licenses and applications include 15 hemp producers located in Fort Worth. Several Fort Worth hemp growers have facilities in nearby cities like Azle, Grand Prairie, and Waxahachie.
Texas Hemp Growers recently launched an online petition that calls for “DSHS to back off Texas businesses and leave hemp alone.” The hemp advocacy group is also preparing a lawsuit to challenge the proposed ban. Zachary Maxwell, Texas Hemp Growers’ president, said that any ban on specific forms of hemp products violates state and federal law, specifically the federal 2018 farm bill that legalizes the regulated production of hemp.
“The proposed rule would be the equivalent of permitting a rancher to raise cattle for sale while prohibiting them from selling steak or permitting a farmer to grow corn while prohibiting sale of corn on the cob,” Maxwell said. “The flower of the hemp plant is the most lucrative part of the plant for both Texas farmers and retailers and could provide much needed revenue to the state of Texas. The most predominant usage of hemp flower by consumers is for smoking, and DSHS’ proposed retail ban forces Texas farmers to send their business out of state by seeking out-of-state buyers for their crop, rather than being able to sell their flower crop in state.”
Cleveland, Texas-based Happy Hippy Haus Dispensary may be hit hard by the proposed hemp restrictions. Dispensary owner Sam Martin said in a public statement that “with an overwhelming support for smokable hemp by many Texans, we have to come together to help our farmers, manufacturers, processors, and retailers. Let’s make this ban go up in smoke.”
Blackwell said that an attack on any part of the hemp industry is an attack on everyone who is involved in the growing, processing, and selling of hemp products.
Hemp farmers “are frustrated,” he said. “If a good part of their market is cut off, the value of their product goes down. It’s not really doing anything except stifling Texas farmers from a large market.”
DSHS, which is taking public comments on the proposals through Monday, June 8, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. l
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