Texas Ban on Smokable Hemp Processing Upheld

The Texas Supreme Court has sustained that smokable hemp can not be manufactured or processed within the state. In an opinion on June 24, Judge Jeffrey Boyd wrote:

“Considering the long history of the state’s extensive efforts to prohibit and regulate the production, possession, and use of the Cannabis sativa L. plant, we conclude that the manufacture and processing of smokable hemp products is neither a liberty interest nor a vested property interest the due-course clause protects. It is, instead, “purely a personal privilege” that the people’s elected representatives in the legislature may grant or withdraw as they see fit.”

Texans can cultivate, handle, transport, export, process, manufacture, distribute, sell and purchase hemp and hemp-containing products.

According to The Dallas Observer, this Supreme Court opinion comes out of a months-long legal battle between the Texas Department of State Health Services, its commissioner, John Hellerstedt, and hemp companies Crown Distributing, America Juice Co., Custom Botanical Dispensary and 1937 Apothecary. The main financial backing for the suit has come from Wild Hempettes.

“This ruling hurts the Texas hemp industry top to bottom,” Zain Meghani, CEO of the Dallas-based hemp company Wild Hempettes, told the Observer.

Visit The Dallas Observer for more on what the ruling means for Texas hemp companies.