A Modern-Day Lynching & Texas’ Own Atticus Finch

If there is a THC problem in Texas, it’s a result of Lax Industry Enforcement

AUSTIN, Texas (Texas Insider Report) — Author Harper Lee’s American literature classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” crafts a powerful narrative about justice, integrity, and the corrosive effects of mob mentality. At the heart of the novel stand Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer in 1930’s who takes a principled and unpopular defense of Tom Robertson, a black man falsely accused of raping a woman.

In the face of deep-seated prejudice and overwhelming community pressure, Atticus is more than a legal advocate but a moral compass- someone who believes that a just verdict must be reached – even when it isn’t easy. Throughout, Atticus’ quiet courage and methodical manner, in which he seeks justice, is in direct contrast to the bombastic harangues of one of his chief antagonists in the story: his client’s accuser’s father, Bob Ewell.
 
It is hard not to see Bob Ewell in the Texas Senate leadership as it bullies, maligns and mischaracterizes (not a person) but an industry and its product: hemp. The Lt. Governor says that Texas has a THC problem. Senator Perry, who is looking to make consumable hemp illegal in Texas (author of both SB 3 during the regular session and SB 5 in the Special Session), equates hemp to heroin.

Another colleague in the Senate says that the product – and the industry – are incapable of being regulated, that regulation doesn’t work, and therefore hemp should be eliminated. Let’s take each of those assertions, one at a time:

Suppose Texas had an alcohol problem – and one could easily argue that it does. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) states alcohol is, nationally, attributable to over 178,000 preventable deaths each year, while 11,000 of those deaths each year are here in Texas.
 

• READ MORE: The Unintended Consequences of Banning All Consumable Hemp in Texas
  • By both Federal & State definition, hemp is 0.3% or less of Delta-9 THC. Everything above that is marijuana – which has become increasingly potent and dangerous. That's why I support further thoughtful regulations on hemp.

Would legislative leaders seek to stem the tide of alcohol’s adverse effects by banning light beer, while subsequently allowing other, more potent products to continue to be offered, like scotch and tequila?). Of course not. Scotch and tequila have a much higher alcoholic content than light beer – it would make no sense (about 3.5% ABV for a light beer versus scotch and tequila, which are typically around 40% ABV.)

But that is exactly what the Texas Senate has done now, two times over in addressing the Lt. Governor’s perceived THC problem – attempting to make hemp illegal. Hemp is the light beer of THC, as it has the least amount of the psychoactive compound THC (.3 percent or less Delta 9 by dry weight, according to both federal and state law.)

If there is a THC problem in Texas, it’s a result of Lax Industry Enforcement

Powerful marijuana – illegal at both the Federal & State levels – continues to masquerade as hemp, and the government allows them to get away with it.

By the Texas Department of State Health Service’s own admission, given during public testimony to the Texas Legislature, the agency has “4.5 Full-Time Employees” trying to inspect over 8,000 Hemp Licensees. What makes the lack of government enforcement even more galling, is that less than 30% of the industry’s licensing fees are used to fund enforcement efforts, according to results from an open records request by Rice University’s Baker Institute.
 
Those agencies and the industries they oversee will continue to exist because regulation does work, and is much more workable than a second attempt at Prohibition.  

Comparing hemp to heroin is a stretch to say the least: Heroin is a Schedule 1 Drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA,) which means it is amongst the most dangerous drugs. Heroin killed around 4,000 people in the United States in 2023 according to the CDC.

To put a finer point on it, according to the CDC the number one killer of American’s 18-45 years old is fentanyl. Meanwhile, there are no documented deaths in the United States directly attributable to hemp.

Despite this, all the state’s time, effort, and scrutiny are being placed on a product that has killed no one.

Big alcohol and pharmaceutical interests are diametrically opposed to where the vast majority of Texans are. Texans have repeatedly voiced their opinion in four separate, credible polls by saying that they "strongly prefer" regulation – and preserving an individual’s freedom of choice, versus the elimination of the product.

Thankfully Governor Greg Abbott, like Atticus Finch, provides a welcome antidote to any dangerous rush to judgement.

When an industry that is legal in both State Statute & Federal Code provides $10.2 billion in economic activity, $2.1 billion in wages, $267 million in taxes, and 53,000 Texans jobs with an economic multiplier of 2.4 x – in which money is reinvested into local communities – you would like to think it would be cause for celebration, not condemnation.

And yet our industry finds itself being made into a political pinata.

Replacing hemp with marijuana under an expanded Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP) state monopoly, would impose significant burdens on consumers:
 

• Access: TCUP serves just over 100,000 patients. Hemp products, by contrast, are available to around 8,500 retailers and accessed by millions of Texans without bureaucratic red tape or invasive medical gatekeeping.
• Affordability: TCUP products remain significantly more expensive than their hemp-derived counterparts, a fact that hits hardest for low-income patients, veterans, and those on fixed incomes.
• Civil Liberties: Purchasing marijuana under TCUP requires enrollment in a government registry, threatens 2nd Amendment and custody rights, and can expose consumers to employment consequences due to failed drug tests – consequences that do not apply to legal hemp products.

A Solution in Search of a Crisis

There is no legitimate policy reason to ban hemp-derived cannabinoids simply because TCUP exists. The push to eliminate hemp in Texas is not about consumer safety or medical efficacy, it is about economic consolidation.

The leading cannabis dispensary in the state, Texas Original, and its big alcohol and pharmaceutical allies want to erase their only real competition under the guise of "public health" – while ignoring the diverse reasons Texans choose hemp over marijuana: namely lower dosages, less intoxicating effects, lower cost, privacy, and ease of access.

In this type of environment, some folks are more interested in preserving the status quo rather than confronting the truth. But while Atticus Finch is a fictional character, Governor Greg Abbott is a real-world political leader who has faced down the pressure to succumb to the mob mentality from other elected officials within his own party.

Atticus Finch described true courage to his children as “when you know you’re licked, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” That has been the unenviable position of the Hemp Industry taking on the Senate's leadership, and the entrenched special interests who jealously guard their existing monopoly on the populations’ attempts to attend to their individual physiological, and psychological challenges.

Fortunately for Texans, Governor Abbott reserves the right to make the final determination on the fate of the hemp industry.