8 January 18 - 24, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents any income. As a result, he had to return his car to the dealership, sell all of his guns and most of his reptiles (he had aspirations of opening a pet shop), and list his boats for sale. He’s also since lost a custody battle for his kids because he wasn’t able to pay his at- torneys anymore. “Literally lost my damn life,” he said. He has since reopened his shop, but he’s cut back significantly on selling THC prod- ucts like delta-8. “People want delta and I’m honestly just scared to sell it or invest in it like I had done,” Pollak said after reopening. He’s considering closing down the store for good or setting up shop in another city. Local cannabis attorney Chelsie Spencer said she’s seen an uptick in the number of raids on hemp shops recently. “I can think of seven alone here in the North Texas area in probably the last four months, and they’re getting more aggressive: seizing inventory, seizing assets, moving for civil forfeiture,” Spencer said. She said she thinks the rise in retail store raids has something to do with the number of child safety incidents regarding THC. Between December 2020 and Feb. 28, 2022, the FDA received 104 reports of ad- verse events in patients who consumed delta-8. About 8% of those involved patients younger than 18 years old. On top of that, be- tween Jan. 1, 2021, and Feb. 28, 2022, na- tional poison control centers received 2,362 delta-8 exposure cases. About 41% of those involved people younger than 18. “We do have a lot of bad actors out there who will sell high-potency edibles to a 12-year-old or to a 14-year-old,” she said. “That’s insane. How do you not expect po- lice to start coming in and going after these stores when you have bad actors selling these to people under the age of 21? “The second compelling reason behind this is I do believe the state of Texas is looking for a test case to show that some of these substances, particularly THCa, are scheduled substances here in Texas,” Spencer said. These raids often happen the same way, she explained. An officer will sit outside the store waiting to pull over customers. The cops either arrest the customers or detain them and seize the product. From there, the product will test hot. After this happens two or three times, an undercover officer will en- ter the store to talk to employees and make one or two test buys. Once the products test over the limit, police go to a judge for a war- rant to perform a raid. “People are risking their lives doing this at this point,” Spencer said. “This is state jail felony type level. … People need to be ex- tremely, extremely careful right now. The state of Texas is not playing around.” She added: “This is life-disrupting events for these store owners. Imagine you’re running your business one day and the next day everything is gone. They’ve taken all of your inventory that you have paid for, they’ve taken your cash, they’ve frozen your bank account and they’ve put you in jail. That’s a pretty big life-changing event for someone.” She said it seems like the police are pri- marily going after THCa. “I have not read a single affidavit that did not involve THCa,” Spencer said. She said some loud voices have been adamant that THCa is legal, but not everyone agrees with that. She said some of those loud voices belong to attorneys who are not licensed in the state of Texas. Texas attorney David Sergi is represent- ing Wegner. He’s also representing the man- ufacturer Hometown Hero CBD in its lawsuit against the state to keep THC iso- mers off Texas’ list of controlled substances. He maintains that all of this stuff is legal, in- cluding THCa. As long as a product doesn’t have more than 0.3% delta-9 THC, it’s legal under state and federal hemp laws, Sergi contends. There are arguments for the legality of THCa, but those arguments won’t necessar- ily keep you from getting arrested, and any- one planning to make them had better have a fair amount of money in the bank. To Spen- cer, there are cannabinoids that are highly risky to sell, some that are low risk and others that don’t come with any risk at all. If you’re looking to get into the hemp business and sell a high-risk cannabinoid like THCa, the first question Spencer is going to ask is “Do you have $10,000–$25,000 to set aside to retain a felony criminal defense attorney in the event that you need one?” And that $10,000–$25,000 is just the cost of retaining an attorney. To see a case to trial with a competent attorney, Spencer said you could be looking at spending from $50,000 to $100,000. If the case goes to a higher court, the costs could grow from there. She said you can make all the legal argu- ments in court that you want, but in Texas it will likely be a losing battle. “People have this rosy outlook sometimes of the law, that the law is the law and it will always be adju- dicated as such, and they tend to think that politics is separate from law. Not so. … The one thing you can never control in litigation is your court of final appeal.” Spencer suspects if any of these THCa cases go to the Texas Supreme Court, it will rule against the hemp businesses. Whichever way you slice it, the creation of all these novel cannabinoids was not the intent behind federal and state hemp laws. Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, said he helped draft the language in the 2018 Farm Bill. The main intent behind the bill was “to legalize a crop that was part of the nation’s culture for a couple hundred years and had been made illegal by the whole reefer madness scare in the early 20th century and trying to provide economic opportu- nity to American farmers to grow this crop,” he said. Industrial hemp is used for its fibers to make textiles, and its seeds produce oil that can be used to manufacture lubricants, paints, inks, fuel and plastics. It’s safe to say that the law’s authors didn’t intend to legalize chemical isomers such as delta-8. “We had no idea what delta-8 was,” Miller said. But the law says what it says, Miller explained. “[The Farm Bill] doesn’t mention delta-8 THC,” he said. “The fact of the matter is courts have looked at this across the country and have said that delta-8 is legal under the letter of the law and that’s what matters. “We just, at the time, had no knowledge about these particular products, and they’ve become a real lifeline for a lot of American farmers. The real challenge is that we were counting on the FDA to start regulating all hemp products, including CBD, and they haven’t done so. As a result, these unregu- lated markets have been created. That’s the real challenge, the real thing that I would go back to try to fix.” He said the broader hemp industry wasn’t sure what to think about delta-8 at first. “The initial feeling from most in the hemp industry when this whole [delta-8] thing happened was one, surprise, and we need to do something about it. This is noth- ing that we intended,” Miller said. “But what we learned shortly thereafter is because of the FDA’s failure to regulate hemp products, we had seen a tremendous crash in CBD prices and so many bankrupt businesses that the adult cannabinoid space really became a lifeline for these hemp farmers that had in- vested so much time and treasure into this.” Since then, Miller said much of the in- dustry has come around with respect to novel cannabinoids like delta-8. He said if he could do it over again, he’d want the 2018 Farm Bill to require the FDA to regulate hemp products as dietary supple- ments. “That was the intent, and I wish we had had more clear language on that.” Miller said there are continuing discus- sions at the federal level to make all of this stuff illegal, but he doesn’t think that’s going to happen. He thinks the legality of these products will be decided on the state level. He’s hoping the next farm bill, which is currently being drafted, will come with more regulations on these products. “The idea here is we don’t need to make anything illegal,” Miller said. “We don’t need to go back and have prohibition, but let’s get them regulated. Let’s make sure that adult canna- binoids are kept out of the hands of kids, and that’s where we need federal regulation.” But there are efforts coming down the pipeline that could put all the fun to an end. Spencer said she’s working with various senators’ offices and one Senate committee on the drafting process for the next farm bill. She couldn’t say exactly who she’s working with, but she’s primarily consulting them on the impact certain language might have on the hemp industry. In the new farm bill, the purported loophole that has allowed prod- ucts like delta-8 will close, Spencer said. “All of these high-potency, 250 milligram edi- bles, they’re going away,” she said. “The in- dustry’s not going to be happy with that, but that’s what’s going to happen.” She said what’s being discussed now is the idea of a total THC cap, instead of just capping delta-9 THC at 0.3%. Beyond that, she said something that people aren’t considering is that cannabis will likely be rescheduled to a Schedule 3 controlled substance by the end of the year. “Any pharmaceutical company then can begin filing for formulations that contain cannabis as an active ingredient in the pre- scription drug,” she said. “Do you think there is any way that the United States gov- ernment is going to allow the novel hemp cannabinoid industry to continue and com- pete with pharmaceutical use? Let’s be honest. “I would not bank my life savings on run- ning out and opening a novel cannabinoid enterprise any time soon.” Wegner has spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal representation to defend himself against the felony charge of manu- facturing and delivery of a controlled sub- stance over 400 grams. He said he’s staying out of the hemp business until there’s some clarity around state and federal hemp laws. “It was too gray,” he said. “There’s a very fine line between felony and freedom.” ▼ LGBTQ HOA NOT OK LGBTQ+ BURLESON COUPLE CLAIM DISCRIMINATION OVER RAINBOW YARD SIGN. BY SIMONE CARTER A my Cooley indulged the urge to knock on the HOA president’s door. She wanted to face the man who’d sent the homophobic texts, for him Unfair Park from p6 >> p10 “The real challenge is that we were counting on the FDA to start regulating all hemp products, including CBD, and they haven’t done so.” –Chelsie Spencer
