Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s push to ban THC in Texas draws rare backlash from the right

quote:

---

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was clear from the start.

Weeks before this year’s legislative session began, and before he announced any other priorities, the Republican Senate leader said he wanted lawmakers to ban, at any cost, products that contain the psychoactive compound in weed. His target was the multibillion-dollar hemp industry that had sprouted up thanks to a loophole in a 2019 state law that legalized products providing a similar high to marijuana.

Patrick justified his conviction by contending that retailers had abused that loophole to sell products with dangerous amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. He accused the retailers of preying on the state’s young people with shops posted near schools and marketing aimed at children.

“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 said in March, talking about his willingness to force a special legislative session by blocking must-pass legislation from making it through the Texas Senate.

And ultimately, Patrick got his way — and an explosion of backlash.

As pressure mounts on the governor to veto a THC ban sent to his desk, Patrick finds himself in the unfamiliar position of taking flak from conservative activists and media personalities outside the Capitol, many of whom typically march in political lockstep with a man who has long been a darling of the right and done more than perhaps any other elected official to drive Texas rightward.

After spearheading the THC ban, Patrick has been accused by some on the right of creating a nanny state and giving Mexican drug cartels a business opportunity to fill demand in the black market. He has been labeled a booze lobby shill for beer distributors who stand to benefit. A hardline conservative state lawmaker who voted against the ban said it contradicted “the Texas mantra of being pro-business, pro-farmer and pro-veteran.”

A Patrick spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is stupid,” Dana Loesch, the former National Rifle Association spokesperson who is now the host of a nationally syndicated conservative talk radio show, wrote on social media in response to Patrick’s argument that the ban would keep THC away from children. “It's like the gun ban argument with a different variable. Kids aren't buying it anymore than any other controlled product (alcohol, cigarettes, et al) and if they are, do your job as a parent and parent instead of idiotically expanding government.”

Before the blowback erupted from inside his house, Patrick courted Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 3. The law bans products containing THC — and would eradicate the state’s $8 billion hemp industry and its estimated 50,000 jobs if it survives Gov. Greg Abbott’s veto pen and expected legal challenges.

Abbott, whose office has been inundated with calls to veto SB 3, has not revealed his intentions for the proposed law. The governor could sign SB 3 into law, veto it or do nothing and let it become law without his signature.

Proponents of the ban have argued it is needed to rein in a wild west industry that’s selling products with dangerously high levels of THC and without proper oversight. Patrick has argued it would be unrealistic to regulate the industry under tighter guardrails — as hemp business leaders and others proposed — because doing so would require an impossible amount of manpower.

---

quote:

---

“Retailers across Texas have exploited a state agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of tetrahydrocannabinol to Texans,” said Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried SB 3, when the upper chamber approved the bill. “These rogue retailers are selling THC products containing several times more THC content than marijuana purchased from a drug dealer off the street. These dangerous products must not be allowed to permeate our communities and endanger Texas children.”

Criticism on the right has come from veterans who say they use the products as alternatives to opioid painkillers to help with a variety of ails, industry leaders who say the Republican-controlled state is turning its back on small businesses, and conservative politicos who have no shortage of arrows they have been aiming at Patrick.

“What lives were destroyed by low grade THC shops, Dan? Can you name one?” Kenny Webster, a Houston conservative talk radio host, posted on social media. “Just one. Go ahead.”

---

quote:

---

The lieutenant governor said he wanted to encourage the news media to write about the dangers of THC. He also said he had “total confidence in the governor. … I’m not worried about the governor understanding it. I’m worried about you all understanding it.”

At one point Patrick lobbed a bag of edibles at a reporter. He later asked another reporter if he was “crazy” for inquiring about the move to limit adults’ access to the products.

---