Manager Keyla Ayala assists customer Casey Gore with his purchase, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, at Retro Revolution Smoke Shop in Dallas.An eclectic group packed a private room inside a tony downtown Austin steakhouse on a Friday evening in September.
Marijuana remains illegal except for Texans who meet strict medical exceptions, but hemp-based products, including those that contain intoxicating cannabis compounds, can be smoked, vaped, sipped or eaten – and Texans are eager consumers. The state’s retail hemp industry raked in anTighter regulations could force a sea change in an industry that has grown from a few dozen players in the non-intoxicating CBD market to nearly 8,500 registered sellers of a vast array of intoxicating products.
Texas does not regulate the labs that test products to ensure they contain legal amounts of cannabis ingredients. Beyond risking harm to users, the situation can have legal implications for those who buy products – or inadvertently sell – advertised as legal but contain illegal levels of THC.
He’s no stranger to adaptation. Enriquez started Lazydaze as a smoke shop 20 years ago in Laredo, where he grew up, after attending business school. He expanded the retail brand into tattoo shops, counterculture gear stores and similar retail businesses.“I keep my ear to the ground because it changes so much, and it feels like the sky is falling every time,” he said. “But I know better at this point that it’s not. As a company, we’ve always evolved on whatever the rules and regulations are.
“We are defying all logic at this point in Texas,” Richardson said. “If you want a recreational cannabis industry, that’s fine. Legalize a recreational cannabis industry with the right controls and the right regulations in place.”Among the consumable hemp industry’s biggest detractors is state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican whose 2019 bill legalized growing and selling hemp and hemp products to help Texas farmers.