You may have read the breathless clickbait headlines complete with incendiary AI images about Texas planning to ban synthetic stony cannabinoids ostensibly made from hemp typically grown abroad and converted into synthetic Frankenoids in the U.S.:
• Total Market Value: The Texas hemp industry generates $5.5 billion annually.
• Overall Economic Impact: The industry supports $10.2 billion in total economic activity.
• Tax Contributions: Hemp sales generate $267.7 million in annual state sales tax revenue.
• Job Creation: The industry employs 53,382 workers, paying out $2.1 billion in wages.
• Business Closures: Approximately 6,350 businesses would be forced to shut down.
• Job Losses: An estimated 40,201 workers would lose their jobs.
• Wage Decline: Texas workers would lose $1.6 billion in wages.
• Economic Shrinkage: A $10.2 billion reduction in economic activity.
• Tax Revenue Loss: Texas would forgo $267.7 million in annual sales tax.
It all sounds oh-so-scary, until you realize that Texas harvested only 1,500 acres of hemp last year [PDF], 1,000 of it in fiber. And only 110 acres in 2023.
The “Texas Hemp Industry” is actually miniscule, a rounding error in some countries’ hemp production:
Synthetic THC products made from cheap foreign-grown hemp are as much the Cannabis plant as a synthetic Digoxin pill is a foxglove plant.
Dirty with contaminants, it’s a cruel hoax on consumers and has created an existential crisis for the true hemp industry, grain and fiber.
The entire point of fighting for decades for hemp legalization was so that American farmers would benefit for once, not the usual foreign ones.
In 2024, Texas was 8th in Outdoor Floral Hemp value, a segment that is an order of magnitude larger than Indoor Floral Hemp (mostly smokable buds).
