Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s push to ban THC in Texas draws rare backlash from the right

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was clear from the start.

Weeks before this year’s legislative session began, and before he announced any other priorities, the Republican Senate leader said he wanted lawmakers to ban, at any cost, products that contain the psychoactive compound in weed. His target was the multibillion-dollar hemp industry that had sprouted up thanks to a loophole in a 2019 state law that legalized products providing a similar high to marijuana.

Patrick justified his conviction by contending that retailers had abused that loophole to sell products with dangerous amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. He accused the retailers of preying on the state’s young people with shops posted near schools and marketing aimed at children.

“I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave here knowing if we don't do something about it in the next two years — how many kids get sick?” Patrick said in March, talking about his willingness to force a special legislative session by blocking must-pass legislation from making it through the Texas Senate.

And ultimately, Patrick got his way — and an explosion of backlash.

As pressure mounts on the governor to veto a THC ban sent to his desk, Patrick finds himself in the unfamiliar position of taking flak from conservative activists and media personalities outside the Capitol, many of whom typically march in political lockstep with a man who has long been a darling of the right and done more than perhaps any other elected official to drive Texas rightward.

After spearheading the THC ban, Patrick has been accused by some on the right of creating a nanny state and giving Mexican drug cartels a business opportunity to fill demand in the black market. He has been labeled a booze lobby shill for beer distributors who stand to benefit. A hardline conservative state lawmaker who voted against the ban said it contradicted “the Texas mantra of being pro-business, pro-farmer and pro-veteran.”

A Patrick spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is stupid,” Dana Loesch, the former National Rifle Association spokesperson who is now the host of a nationally syndicated conservative talk radio show, wrote on social media in response to Patrick’s argument that the ban would keep THC away from children. “It's like the gun ban argument with a different variable. Kids aren't buying it anymore than any other controlled product (alcohol, cigarettes, et al) and if they are, do your job as a parent and parent instead of idiotically expanding government.”

Before the blowback erupted from inside his house, Patrick courted Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 3. The law bans products containing THC — and would eradicate the state’s $8 billion hemp industry and its estimated 50,000 jobs if it survives Gov. Greg Abbott’s veto pen and expected legal challenges.

Abbott, whose office has been inundated with calls to veto SB 3, has not revealed his intentions for the proposed law. The governor could sign SB 3 into law, veto it or do nothing and let it become law without his signature.

Proponents of the ban have argued it is needed to rein in a wild west industry that’s selling products with dangerously high levels of THC and without proper oversight. Patrick has argued it would be unrealistic to regulate the industry under tighter guardrails — as hemp business leaders and others proposed — because doing so would require an impossible amount of manpower.

Lawmakers also passed a bill to expand the state’s medical marijuana program by offering more products and adding more qualifying conditions, an olive branch extension to vets and THC users with chronic conditions who opposed the retail ban.

Patrick said the medical expansion “will help those in true need of relief.” But he and his allies have remained steadfast behind the THC ban, even amid pushback from the right.

“Retailers across Texas have exploited a state agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of tetrahydrocannabinol to Texans,” said Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried SB 3, when the upper chamber approved the bill. “These rogue retailers are selling THC products containing several times more THC content than marijuana purchased from a drug dealer off the street. These dangerous products must not be allowed to permeate our communities and endanger Texas children.”

Criticism on the right has come from veterans who say they use the products as alternatives to opioid painkillers to help with a variety of ails, industry leaders who say the Republican-controlled state is turning its back on small businesses, and conservative politicos who have no shortage of arrows they have been aiming at Patrick.

“What lives were destroyed by low grade THC shops, Dan? Can you name one?” Kenny Webster, a Houston conservative talk radio host, posted on social media. “Just one. Go ahead.”

Some recent scrutiny was driven by a news conference Patrick called to push back on criticism of the ban, even after it had already cleared both chambers and was on its way to Abbott’s desk. Flanked by senators and law enforcement officials, Patrick stood in front of a variety of THC products laid out on a table and made his case.

The lieutenant governor said he wanted to encourage the news media to write about the dangers of THC. He also said he had “total confidence in the governor. … I’m not worried about the governor understanding it. I’m worried about you all understanding it.”

At one point Patrick lobbed a bag of edibles at a reporter. He later asked another reporter if he was “crazy” for inquiring about the move to limit adults’ access to the products.

“If he was trying to make a case for a THC ban, I can’t think of a more bizarre and counterproductive spectacle than yesterday’s press conference,” said Rolando Garcia, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee who routinely criticizes GOP lawmakers for perceived breaches of conservative orthodoxy. “We have a mad king surrounded by courtiers and yes men afraid to tell him he’s making a fool of himself.”

Some opponents of the total ban have vowed retribution against Patrick, who is running for reelection in 2026 armed with an endorsement from President Donald Trump and more than $33 million in his campaign coffers. Those factors — and Patrick’s long history of promoting policies that most primary voters see as higher priorities than preserving THC access — mean it is unlikely the blowback will cost Patrick much, according to political observers.

“It’s hard to imagine given Patrick’s position and where he is now that somehow this is going to be in and of itself the source of some fundamental political threat,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “Honestly I think we’re not used to seeing Dan Patrick criticized very much from within his own party and so it’s really sticking out, and that’s fair.”

Meanwhile, another member of the SREC, Morgan Eakin, on social media questioned Patrick’s conservative bona fides by pointing to when Patrick came under fire from his own party over gun rights.

As the Legislature in 2021 contemplated letting most Texans carry a handgun without a license or training, Patrick at first said the Senate did not have the votes to pass the measure.

Lawmakers ultimately passed the bill, often referred to by Republicans as constitutional carry because of their belief that it is an American’s constitutional right to pack heat without involving the government.

“We have to ask ourselves how so many were gaslit into believing the Senate and Dan Patrick were consistently more in line with basic constitutional principles and that [former House Speaker Dade Phelan] and the House were unequivocally liberal,” Eakin wrote.

Phelan, a Beaumont Republican who clashed with Patrick during his time as speaker, weighed in on SB 3 Monday, writing on social media that “Texans do not want a total ban.”

“They do want a reasonable, regulated hemp market free of dangerous products — especially those advertised and sold to minors,” wrote Phelan, who ultimately voted for SB 3 but earlier opposed an amendment that changed it from a regulatory bill to a full-on ban. “The gas station garbage must go while Texans enjoy the freedom they expect from conservative governance.”

Despite the blowback, Patrick remains a champion of conservative policies and key player in GOP victories. This session alone, state lawmakers passed stiffer bail laws, required that most sheriffs work with federal immigration authorities and approved measures allowing time for prayer in public schools and requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.

Patrick has rarely taken much heat from his own party. One notable instance was also related to guns after a pair of mass shootings.

In 2019, a gunman wanting to quell an “invasion” of Hispanic immigrants went to a Walmart in El Paso, where he opened fire and murdered 23 people and wounded 22 others. Shortly after that attack, a gunman terrorized Midland and Odessa with a shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of eight people.

Patrick said it was high time the state required background checks on gun sales between strangers.

"Someone in the Republican Party has to take the lead on this," he said at the time, adding that he was “willing to take an arrow” for the stance.

The backlash, once again, was swift. His conservatism was called into question and some on the right even painted him as a bigger threat to guns than Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who had infamously said during a presidential debate the same year, “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15.”

Patrick withstood the pushback. And lawmakers never approved legislation he called for regulating private stranger-to-stranger gun sales. Since allowing permitless carry in 2021, lawmakers have expanded access to firearms, including with a bill this year to legalize sawed-off shotguns, among other victories for gun rights advocates.

The lack of fallout from Patrick’s push to regulate private gun sales may offer a clue about how the SB 3 situation will shake out. Patrick received 77% of the 2022 GOP primary vote against only token opposition, and he was easily reelected in November.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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