In a dramatic last-minute move, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) vetoed a total ban on recreational cannabis that had been backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), revealing a rare rift between the state’s top elected officials.
Abbott signed the veto of S.B. 3 on Sunday just one hour before its deadline, calling for a special legislative session in mid-July to address the state’s wild-west cannabis market.
The move came one day after Abbott signed H.B. 46, which dramatically expanded the state’s medical cannabis program to include a wide range of new conditions, put dispensaries across the state and allow the sale of new products such as vaporizers.
S.B. 3, which passed last month after a bitterly contested fight, represented what the Houston Chronicle has called a “civil war” between medical and recreational cannabis, in which medical — until Sunday — appeared to have won.
In a Sunday statement, Patrick blasted the veto — and Abbott. “His late-night veto, on an issue supported by 105 of 108 Republicans in the legislature, strongly backed by law enforcement, many in the medical and education communities, and the families who have seen their loved ones’ lives destroyed by these very dangerous drugs, leaves them feeling abandoned,” Patrick said.
But in his veto statement, Abbott, while pointing to many of the same issues, argued that while the measure was “well-intentioned,” it would set back the cause of controlling the state’s booming hemp market.
The bill, he wrote, would not survive legal challenge, because the all-Republican 2018 Farm Bill — which legalized hemp and opened the door to the current thriving cannabis grey market — bans states from restricting the sale of hemp.
“It therefore criminalizes what Congress expressly realized and puts state and federal law on a collision course,” Abbott wrote. He noted that in the case of Arkansas, the only other state that has tried such a ban, a federal judge effectively blocked it.
That, he argued, means that a total ban would, ironically, lead to no control at all.
“If Senate Bill 3 is swiftly enjoined by a court, our children will be no safer than if no law had passed, and the problems will only grow,” Abbott wrote.
The Legislature, he wrote, will get a chance to regulate the industry later this summer.
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