An open letter to the 88th Texas Legislature

Looking forward to a productive and prosperous session for cannabis.

BY JESSE WILLIAMS

Ithink it’s fair to say that last session was a misfire at minimum for all fronts involving cannabis.

Industry advocates and the 87th legislature watched as penalty reduction was killed, and it was a domino effect from the failure of delta-8 THC restrictions being placed on the hemp cleanup bill. The hemp cleanup bill failed over the same issue. The medical bill was basically gutted of its biggest key components by the time it was sent to the governor, and it barely made it to his desk on time in the end. That result has an appearance of being from the delta-8 situation as well.

There were legitimate concerns to address in the cannabis industry in all of those areas mentioned before. There seemed to be a trend though that if one thing couldn’t be dealt with in a flat out ban, that the baby needed to go out with the bathwater. That what many would call a knee-jerk reaction, was desired by some. We don’t have to do it that way though, do we?

I personally figure that since everyone I’ve met in the legislative sessions serving as a Representative or a Senator have college educations, that we would all be smart enough to iron out the details for issues like this. I know that a lot of people, with a lot of interests and quite a few ideas are coming into your offices. I know that most of them mean well when it comes to discussing the issues of cannabis. But it appears that sometimes that the message the advocate message sender presented to the representative message receiver, was not fully clear and understood. Or perhaps the message was misunderstood.

An example of this may be that an advocate has presented that cannabis be regulated similarly to how the state of Texas regulates alcohol or tobacco. This does not mean though that the advocate is saying that cannabis and cannabinoids work the same way alcohol does when ingested by the human body. Setting a limit of 0.3%thc by volume doesn’t scientifically designate that a person cannot become intoxicated the same way as alcohol when ingesting legal hemp products. It does not mean that a person will test negative on a THC drug test. It does not mean that someone testing positive for THC on a drug test was ingesting marijuana above 0.3%THC by volume.

The concept of asking to regulate something like alcohol, is asking to put rules in place where the sale of the substance is similar to that of alcohol to solve the same problems the industry could face if it was selling alcohol over the counter.

Just like alcohol, many advocates in the industry wish for these products to only be available to adults for sale. The same way alcohol is age gated with its sales practices. Many advocates wish for the products to be sold in a fashion that minors cannot get easy access to in a story as if it was candy or chips. The same way we deal with cigarettes in a store.

There’s also an issue of the use of the word synthetics, without even starting to discuss the chemical compounds on their own.

From my understanding there is a federal version for the definition of synthetics and then there will be what the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) defines as synthetics when it comes to cannabis and specifically hemp products. If the definition decided upon is one where any chemical goes through a mechanical process or chemical process to produce a new product, the cannabis oil market is dead altogether.

Isolates for CBD are going through one of those two processes. The same goes for a full spectrum hemp oil extract. The extract process itself is being banned when synthetic is defined as such.

Say that DSHS decided instead to say that a synthetic was defined as any compound created by a mechanical or chemical process of hemp compounds found naturally in the plant that creates a new compound not found naturally in a hemp/cannabis plant. If the goal was to get Delta-8 (D-8) off the market, that language would not solve the problem either. D-8 naturally occurs in the plant.

The fact that D-8 may be miniscule in the plant naturally, still keeps it legal and for some companies, a viable product. I’ve told many colleagues and readers in the past this following analogy to understand how that is so. How much fun can one have with a single grain of sand? How much health and pleasure could one get from trying to enjoy a day on a single grain of sand no bigger than the ball in a pen? It’s not enough to be significant on its own. But what is a beach made up of if not but about a billion grains of sand every square foot?

The same thing takes place with delta-8 in cannabis. If you process enough plants, your delta-8 grain of sand becomes a delta-8 beach.

Yes, taking this route will eliminate any cannabinoid that was not found naturally in the plant before. Does this make the final products safer? Not if you ultimately thought delta-8 was harmful on its own.

I’d personally think there should be some logic and consistency with that line of thought and carry it over to the rest of the plant. But that is apparently not true for a big chunk of our legislative makeup, as a vast majority have been in favor of medical benefits from the plant.

As well, it is understandable that there would be concerns about an item that can be foreign to quite a few of our elected officials. But those concerns should not be addressed as fears. They aren’t putting any elected official into a fight or flight mode. They’re concerns and advocates should be able to address those concerns with logic and reason. All I ask is that the legislature be willing to listen.

I don’t have a business stake in the industry regarding any form of cannabis. I have volunteered by time and effort for the last 5 years of my life because I have a stake in our society, my community, and state as I live here. I am a medically retired veteran with a family that includes a child. I understand that parents want to make sure their children of any age up to the point where they are adults making their own decisions, aren’t able to easily be placed into harm’s way by neglectful or bad actors. That’s why we create laws and ordinances for things like alcohol. We put down rules that define who the bad actors are and then we enforce those rules. The enforcers must enforce the rules though as well regarding bad actors in the industry. For an industry that was left to be on its own for several years, it did an ok job of weeding out some bad actors. It took quite a bit of education to the general public, but it’s happening. It’s also going to require that the enforcers of new laws know that the new laws exist. I hope that this can begin to start a new conversation on the topic of cannabis and hemp in Texas, as this is really just the tip of the iceberg.

Texas meets every two years, and our current TCUP/Medical marijuana program is capped at 1% and there are other limitations to their program, I anticipate that getting sorted out in the next two to six years in legislation before you begin to see recreational legalization on the horizon. Another major plot twist to throw into all of this is the fact that during this time, hemp became federally legal and state legal allowing for up to .3% Delta 9 THC on a dry weight basis. Almost all these mature marijuana states like Colorado, California, and Oregon legalized medical, then adult use, then hemp. But in Texas we have a different call to order. We’re slowly expanding medical into a mature program, then hemp became legalized, and we’re still advocating for adult use.

I’m not going to pretend like I know how things are going to go in Texas, but I’m paying attention to the market across our the United States and paying attention to Texas politics. It’s going to be an exciting Texas Legislative session, and I hope you’ll be following along. I’m a part of an organization called the Texas Hemp Coalition, they are going to be leading a lot of advocacy and policy work for the hemp industry this session, so if you want to get more involved please check them out. Otherwise conversations like this can always be found at ToBeBluntpod.com.