Taking the feds’ lead, the Texas Legislature passed HB 1325 in 2019, authorizing the licensed cultivation of hemp and barring local governments from passing regulations on hemp processing, or the manufacture and sale of consumable hemp products. Their defense focused on a rational-basis argument pressed Tuesday before the state Supreme Court by Texas Deputy Solicitor General Bill Davis. He noted that before the state’s legalization of hemp production, Texas law did not distinguish between the flower, or bud, of marijuana plants and hemp plants – they were both illegal. In defending the rule before the trial judge, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawyers called no witnesses and offered no exhibits. But the hemp companies’ attorney, Constance Pfeiffer of the Houston firm Yetter Coleman, eviscerated the state’s rationale.
Via Courthouse News
Texas’ ban on the manufacture of smokable hemp is justified due to health concerns tied to inhaling smoke, a state attorney argued Tuesday, even though there’s no prohibition on the sale of such products made by out-of-state companies.
After decades of cannabis prohibition that did not differentiate between marijuana and hemp, which contains miniscule amounts of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, the federal government undid the shackles on domestic hemp production with its passage of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018.
Also called the Farm Bill, it authorizes the transport of hemp-based products...
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