10 OctOber 5–11, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents people because every seat belongs to the people. It belongs to the community and I think sometimes we get away from that.” In the middle of his career, he said it’s actually inconve- nient for him to run at this point, but that’s not the point. “I couldn’t not do it, no matter what’s going on, no matter how uncomfortable it may be and how crazy people may think I am.” By announcing his candidacy now, he’s hoping to inspire other people who have sound leadership abilities to run for office and to let others know that there aren’t any safe seats in the county. “Leadership is more than just following the same blue- print that everyone follows,” Avery said. “Leadership is about taking a risk and putting actual policies together to make sure that people in the community actually have the power and to show that whoever’s in the seat is accountable to the people. That’s why I’m running.” He said one of his biggest obstacles to winning the seat will be name recognition. When facing a titan such as Price, that’s a significant hurdle. “People vote for who they’re familiar with,” he said. “Some people are familiar with me, but the vast majority are not. So, the biggest obstacle is allowing people to get to know who Derek Avery is.” If elected, he said he wants to focus on housing, eco- nomic development and transportation. He said these things are inextricably linked. “A lot of times what I’ve seen in local government is we work on one without working on the other, without collaborating,” he said. “With housing, you can’t have affordable housing without having economic de- velopment.” One of his overall goals is to increase home ownership in each zip code in the district to at least 50%. He also wants to focus on fighting homelessness. He said there are people who choose not to be housed, but he wants to make sure that those who want a home can have one. As far as economic development goes, he said the county could do more in partnering with other cities to increase grants that go to small businesses. “If you have an entity that is really focused on investing in those small businesses, we can change the landscape of this particu- lar county and we can hire people from the county,” Avery said. On transportation, he wants people to be able to get across the county in less than an hour. He said Sandbranch, a small unincorporated town that doesn’t have running water, sewer or trash collection, is a ma- jor issue and sticking point for him because it’s a freedman’s town that has been around for over 140 years. This shouldn’t be a problem in 2023, Avery said, and he thinks it’s the coun- ty’s responsibility to come up with a solution. “The fix [for Sandbranch] is not very expensive in the grand scheme of fixes,” he said. “In a freedman’s town to have Black and Brown people who do not have water is ri- diculous when we have access to the capital to be able to do it.” He said one thing he’ll do in office or out of office is make sure that Sandbranch is protected. “Once it’s developed and water is provided and sewer is provided and trash collection is provided, we don’t want it to become a bastion for gentri- fication,” he said. “We want to make sure that we protect those legacy residents.” He said he wants to help create a fund that would pay for Sandbranch water bills for at least 10 years so residents won’t be burdened by costs they didn’t always have to account for. “For me, justice and equity go hand in hand in this case because these people have been done wrong,” he said. “We need to rectify that but we also need to make it easier for them going down the road.” Beating Price in an election isn’t going to be easy, if it’s possible at all. Avery may not want to take big shots at the commissioner, but he knows if he isn’t bringing something new to the court, voters will see little point in supporting an unknown candidate. “Right now, unfortunately there have been some leader- ship gaps that have happened from that particular seat and I think that now is the time to look to new leadership to take us further,” Avery said. “We always appreciate every- thing that someone has done before us, but right now we don’t have time for what has not worked. We have to move forward with what works. That’s where we are right now. That’s why this is great timing and why it’s so urgent that we have new leadership at the county commissioners court.” ▼ CANNABIS HEMP HEMP HOORAY! DELTA-8 IS STILL LEGAL IN TEXAS AFTER COURT RULING. BY JACOB VAUGHN D elta-8 THC will remain legal in Texas for now, fol- lowing a recent ruling in a state court of appeals. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has been fighting to ban the stuff since 2021 when it added a statement to its website stating that delta-8 and other THC isomers were Schedule 1 controlled substances. The move sent some in the hemp industry into a panic as stores were forced to pull the products from their shelves. Then, a company called Hometown Hero CBD came along and sued the state agency over the THC isomer ban. Through this suit, the company was able to get an injunc- tion, which halted the ban. The state appealed the injunc- tion to the Third Court of Appeals. The case lingered in court until Sept. 5 when it finally got a hearing. Each side had 20 minutes to make their case and the appeals court ruled in Hometown Hero’s favor on Sept. 28. “We are delighted that the Third Court of Appeals of Texas today upheld the decision to stop the prohibition of hemp-derived delta-8 products,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Not only does this ruling help save an $8 billion industry, and thousands of jobs, but it also gives adult consumers and veterans continued access to hemp- based cannabis products that have become vital to their ev- eryday lives.” The state moved forward with the ban after the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency updated its list of controlled sub- stances in 2020 to align with the 2018 Farm Bill. This bill federally legalized hemp, which is cannabis with less than 0.3% delta-9 THC. Delta-9 THC, often just called THC, is the chief psychoactive component in cannabis that gets us- ers high. Cannabis with more than 0.3% delta-9 THC is con- sidered illegal marijuana. Cannabis with less than 0.3% delta 9 is considered legal hemp. Texas passed a similar bill in 2019 that legalized hemp in the state, and since then smoke shop shelves have been flooded with other types of THC, like delta-8, which is generally regarded as delta-9’s less po- tent cousin. When the DEA “designates, reschedules or deletes” sub- stances from the federal list of controlled substances, it trig- gers the state’s ability to choose whether to adopt the changes. But Hometown Hero and its lawyers argue that the DEA was just conforming the list to be in line with the fed- eral hemp law. Because the federal agency wasn’t designat- ing, rescheduling or deleting anything on the controlled substances list (from Hometown Hero’s perspective), the state wasn’t triggered to do anything with its controlled sub- stances list. The company also claims that the state never gave proper notice or a proper hearing about the change. DSHS did post a notice for the hearing online in September 2020. It was titled “Objection to Implementing DEA Rule Changes.” The notice was also posted in the state’s register, which includes text-searchable PDFs. This allows people following the hemp industry to find important updates to laws regarding hemp. However, the state’s notice regarding delta-8 wasn’t text-searchable in the register. Had it been text-searchable, interested citizens could have found out about it, shown up for the hearing and spoken out against banning delta-8 and other THC isomers. Instead, no one showed up or sent in public comments. So the change hap- pened without objection. What the state did was to change the entries for THC and “marihuana extract” to include THC isomers like delta-8. The next year, the state agency posted on its website that THC isomers were considered Schedule 1 controlled sub- stances. This prompted the Hometown Hero lawsuit, which secured an injunction to halt the ban. The state then ap- pealed the injunction and lost in the third court of appeals. Now, the state could decide to bring the case to the Texas Supreme Court. But Jesse Williams, a writer for Texas Can- nabis Collective, the Fort Worth-based cannabis news site, doesn’t think that’s very likely for three reasons: First, the state usually appeals decisions like this immediately, but that didn’t happen this time; second, Williams said, the Texas Supreme Court already decided not to continue the ban in another stage of the lawsuit; and third, Tony Buzbee, the lawyer who represented Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial, owns a hemp company that sells delta-8 infused seltzer. “It would be really odd for Paxton to have his office work against his attorney,” Wil- liams said. Either way, Lukas Gilkey, founder and CEO of Home- town Hero, said in a video about the court decision that the company was prepared to continue its fight to keep delta-8 legal. “We continue to believe we’re on the right side of this and we will continue to fight on behalf of everybody in Texas around hemp-derived cannabinoids and make sure that these products stay legal for the people that need them like veterans and a lot of other groups of people.” Unfair Park from p8 Malen Blackmon Delta-8 strains will remain legal following an appeal.
