The Truth About Hemp Lab Testing in Texas

 A Call for Honesty, Not Hysteria

By Nicholas Mortillaro, and Jay Maguire Co-Founders, CRAFT (Cannabis Retailers Alliance for Texas)

In recent months, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Senator Charles Perry have repeatedly pointed to a series of lab tests as justification for banning hemp-derived THC products in Texas. They claim these products violate the law and pose a danger to public health. But the truth—buried beneath layers of politicized rhetoric and scientific misrepresentation—is that these lab results are a dangerous distortion, not a reflection of reality.

The Lab at the Center of the Storm

The lab being cited most frequently—Armstrong Forensic Laboratory—has come under intense scrutiny following a bombshell report from the Texas Forensic Science Commission. The Commission, which oversees forensic testing across the state, warned prosecutors and law enforcement that the methods used by Armstrong to test for THC content in hemp products are unreliable, unaccredited, and dangerously misleading.

Let me be blunt: Armstrong’s method is not standard, not validated, and not legally appropriate for determining compliance with Texas hemp law. In fact, Armstrong itself admitted in email correspondence with a senior DPS official that their method guarantees any sample will test above the legal limit of 0.3% Delta-9 THC—whether it’s compliant or not. That’s not science. That’s sabotage.

Weaponized Testing

Texas law is clear: hemp is legal if it contains no more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC by dry weight. The only federally accepted method for determining this is post-decarboxylation testing using liquid chromatography, which distinguishes between active THC and its acidic precursor, THCa. Armstrong, however, uses a method designed to simulate smoking—a process that converts all THCa into Delta-9 THC, regardless of whether the product would ever be consumed in that way.

This “smoke conversion” method is not used by any credible lab for regulatory compliance because it doesn’t reflect the actual chemical state of the product at the time of sale. Worse, it has not been peer-reviewed or subjected to proper scientific scrutiny. Yet, Patrick and Perry wave these results around like a smoking gun.

They’re not. They’re junk science—weaponized to create fear and justify overreach.

Political Games, Real Consequences

We’ve seen this before. The history of cannabis prohibition in the United States is a story of misinformation and racialized fearmongering dressed up as public safety. What’s happening now is no different. Members of the Texas Legislature are being manipulated into supporting a policy based not on fact, but on a fiction concocted by an anti-hemp agenda.

Retailers across Texas—many of them family-owned, law-abiding small businesses—have invested heavily in compliance, safety, and consumer transparency. Products are labeled, lab-tested, and age-gated. Yet they now find themselves accused of criminal conduct based on faulty lab tests that wouldn’t hold up in any honest court of law.

Meanwhile, consumers—veterans, cancer patients, people suffering from anxiety, PTSD, and chronic pain—are being told their medicine is somehow a menace.

A Call to Action

It’s time for the Texas Legislature to reject this manipulation. The science is clear. The law is clear. And the motives behind this attack on the hemp industry are becoming clearer by the day.

CRAFT is calling on all elected officials to denounce the use of these illegitimate lab tests as justification for recriminalizing hemp. We urge lawmakers to consult with real scientists, understand the testing standards used by accredited labs across the country, and resist the pressure to ban what should be regulated responsibly.

Texas can lead the way in safe, science-based cannabis policy—or it can double down on fear, fraud, and failure.

The choice is yours.

Nicholas Mortillaro holds a degree in chemical engineering and is the co-founder of CRAFT, a statewide industry alliance promoting education, compliance, and accountability in the hemp retail sector. Learn more at joincraft.org.