Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said he will move to force an overtime session of the Legislature if lawmakers fail to ban THC or tighten Texas’s bail laws—two of his top priorities—before the current session ends in early June.
The power to order lawmakers back to Austin for a special session is reserved for Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who also gets to set the agenda for such overtime rounds. But in his role presiding over the Texas Senate, Patrick can block any bill from passing, giving him leverage to compel special sessions by killing must-pass legislation.
Patrick did exactly that in 2017, thwarting passage of a “sunset” bill that would have extended the life of several state agencies, including the Texas Medical Board, after the House declined to take up measures curbing property tax rates and requiring transgender people to use public restrooms based on “biological sex” rather than their gender identities.
In an interview, Patrick affirmed that he would go a similar route this session if the House declines to get on board with his priority bill to clamp down on the state’s exploding hemp market by banning products that contain tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.
“There aren’t many things you go down that path for, but the life and health of people is one,” Patrick told The Texas Tribune on Wednesday. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave here knowing if we don’t do something about it in the next two years—how many kids get sick?”
Patrick and Senate lawmakers are taking aim at the roughly 8,300 Texas retailers that sell a range of hemp products—from gummies to beverages to flower buds—under a 2019 state law that authorized the sale of consumable hemp. Patrick and Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried the 2019 law, say the hemp industry has exploited a loophole in a bill that was intended to boost agriculture by allowing non-consumable products with small amounts of delta-9 THC.
While hemp products are not allowed to contain more than a 0.3 percent concentration of THC—anything higher is classified as marijuana—Patrick and Perry contend that the industry has endangered public health by putting products on the shelf with dangerously high levels of THC well beyond the 0.3 percent threshold.
Perry’s proposal this session, known as Senate Bill 3, would effectively shutter the hemp industry by making it illegal to possess or manufacture products containing THC outside the state’s limited medical marijuana program.
It’s already passed in the Senate, but it awaits action in the lower chamber, where industry leaders are hopeful House members will push for stricter oversight and licensing requirements in lieu of banning THC products altogether.
Hellbound and Down 