Strict rules over delta-8 and delta-9 likely for Texas’ booming hemp industry

Lawmakers are struggling to balance demands for medicinal cannabis products with a wildly growing market that is outpacing meaningful regulation.

When Texas state Sen. Charles Perry sat down this week in a packed room at the state Capitol to hear testimony on whether to ban some psychoactive hemp products from being sold in the state, he already knew what was coming.

The Lubbock Republican’s 2019 agricultural hemp legislation — a bipartisan, farmer-friendly bill — had opened up the state’s hemp industry and, in doing so, touched off a massive new consumable hemp market in Texas as well.