Dear Grandma, Lt. Gov Dan Patrick is coming after your Hemp Products

I hope that this finds you doing well, but your grandson has some concerns about your near future.

 

I’ve tried telling you in the past that he was looking into ways he could do this. I remember you telling me that there was nothing on the news about it, so it must be my wild imagination. Well, it’s on the news now if you didn’t see.

 

Our Lt Governor just put out a written list of legislative priorities for the next legislative session. One of them is exactly this grandma. Banning Delta 8 and 9:  Examine the sale of intoxicating hemp products in Texas. Make recommendations to further regulate the sale of these products, and suggest legislation to stop retailers who market these products to children.

 

Nana, we both know you’re no kid. And I hope you know better than to believe that anybody in this state was making products with the hopes that children would get their hands on them. And nobody is trying to argue that the retailers should even be allowed to sell to children. I know that you like the packaging that reminds you of some of your favorite candies, but it’s not like that to get kids involved. It’s like that because it reminds you of your favorite candies and it helps you decide which ones better suit your taste.

And it’s not just the gummies and Dan and his senators will be going after. They will go after any flower products, oils, tinctures, and even the salves you use on your joints. When they say ban the intoxicating substance grandma, they mean to ban the very thing that gives you relief at the chemical level, not the final product level.

 

The legislature doesn’t know of a way of banning just the end product without allowing some sort of base product that could be used in a way they don’t approve of. They just find it easier to ban the substance altogether. And this substance, it’s naturally part of the plant. All of the work spent creating viable crops with a market that would buy any end product, gone. Out the window. 5 years of hard work across an entire industry will be wiped out. You’ll be left with nothing to use, and the economy will take a giant hit too.

 

Oma, I’m telling you that over 19 billion dollars in economic action will take a major hit, if not wiped out from the ban. I know that nineteen billion sounds like a joke number to you at times. But one of those big economic firms called Whitney Economics with a load of qualified professionals, reported last year about these numbers. Over one and a half billion dollars was spent on wages in this state alone. That’s over a hundred million dollars in social security funds that are helping to cover your current check from social security. Yeah, you can be mad about it possibly running out, but it won’t help if the state is slashing funds going into the pool of money.

Grams, it won’t help if they cut 5,000 businesses from the market and destroy 50 thousand jobs. It will put a toll on the unemployment system and possibly take a major hit on increasing the homeless population. It will take a hit on families that started these businesses with everything they own as investment to see it succeed. The government isn’t going to bail out a business it tries to cut.

 

Abuela, I know that you had access in other states and in one of the places you lived before retirement that it was the equivalent of a parking ticket for getting caught. It’s not like that here in Texas. If you have flower it’s class B misdemeanor which means a huge fine and jail time. If you have the gummies and oil, it’s jail time from being a felony. Por el amor de Dios Abuela, te ruego que tomes esto en serio. Al estado de Texas no le importa un carajo tu vejez.

 

Older people are making up a bigger population of the prison system grandma, and it’s coming from new arrests and not just people getting old in the system. I don’t want to see you becoming one of them. Those people don’t get almost any of their proper meds. Your special diet for your heart and blood sugar, doesn’t exist.

 

I’m not asking for people to be able to sell to kids. It hasn’t really been an issue. I don’t think anybody would have a problem with requiring only adults to be able to purchase it over the counter. We’re not needing marketing legislation either, grandma, it already exists to stop companies from ripping off other products’ trademarks. We both know kids like anything flashy and shiny, but that doesn’t mean we ban everything flashy and shiny does it?

Just remember this for the next 6-7 months Grandma as election campaigns start asking for your opinion. You have to let them know you don’t want to lose your therapeutic hemp products. You have to remind them that addressing imaginary or minor problems with a ban doesn’t fix anything. Holding people responsible for careless behavior that hurts others, that’s a solution.

 

Anyways Grandma, I can’t wait to see you again and have some of those cookies and that tasty pecan pie you make every time. It’s my favorite. Has been since I can remember you making it for me back when you said I was a big boy that didn’t need a highchair anymore. Hugs and kisses.

 

Te amo abuela.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jesse Williams