By Luke Niforatos
Gas-station marijuana doesn’t seem like it should have many friends. Indeed, the House Appropriations Committee recently declared that banning these hemp-derived synthetic chemicals “supports the mandate of the American people.” While Congress is moving to close the loophole it inadvertently created via the 2018 Farm bill, many states have followed suit to ban hemp intoxicants outright.
But at the 11th hour, Texas Governor Greg Abbott turned tail and ran the other way by blocking a bill that would have banned these products.
In vetoing Senate Bill 3 and referring it back to the legislature, Abbott ignored cries of alarm from parents, law enforcement, and public health groups and chose instead to listen to an industry-backed lobbying campaign. He also bucked the growing, and fully bipartisan, trend of states moving to ban these products.
Since Congress accidentally allowed the hemp-intoxicant industry to form, psychoactive chemicals like Delta-8 and THC-O have been unleashed on an unsuspecting public via gas-station checkouts and convenience stores across the country. These harmful drugs are in candies, cookies, and gummies—packaged to mimic safe treats like Oreos and Sour Patch Kids.
The FDA has determined they cause hallucinations, vomiting, and loss of consciousness (among other nasty effects). They are extremely addictive. And because they’re so new, we’re only beginning to understand what other harm they may be causing.
We do know they’re serious and tragic.
In 2022, a four-year-old child died after eating Delta-8 THC edibles. Last year, federal surveys reported that more than 12% of 12th graders had used hemp-derived marijuana. More than 10,000 Americans have contacted poison control centers regarding the drugs over the past 4 years.
Yet Texas blinked.
Thankfully, other elected officials and regulators have seen the danger here. In 2023, Arkansas’ Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had the courage to sign her state’s ban on these products in 2023. She did this as part of her agenda to keep Arkansas family-friendly and stood firm in the face of overwhelming industry pressure, including from some of the country’s largest hemp companies. Many other states have too.
But fighting dangerous products and the predatory companies that make and sell them to our kids isn’t a red-state or blue-state value. Deep-blue Connecticut’s Democratic Attorney General William Tong is showing the courage Abbott lacks by cracking down on hemp-derived drugs. So too is his counterpart Mike Hilgers in red Nebraska. Twenty-one other attorneys general both Republican and Democrat have called for an end to the hemp loophole on public-health grounds. With Governor Newsom’s blessing, California has launched an agency-led move to permanently ban the THC products it enacted an emergency ban late last year.
That’s the way to fight for real public health: not by capitulating to industry and camouflaging it with vague hopes of regulation.
No state had banned hemp-derived THC before 2018; now, more than a dozen have. Decisions like Abbott’s are, increasingly, aberrant. For that, we should be thankful.
Last-minute, overnight vetoes from officials afraid of the addiction industry are not what America needs from its leaders.
Luke Niforatos is the executive vice president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.