Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's War on the Truth: A Comprehensive Fact-Check of His SB 3 Press Conference

OG Article By S. Jay "MadDawgg" Maguire  Today's Episode on YouTube  X  Rumble

June 24, 2025

You have to hand it to him, it takes skill to incorporate all of those rhetorical and logical fallacies in a single press conference, but maybe that's just Lt Dan's superpower. 

It was breathtaking. In the aftermath of Gov. Greg Abbott's veto of Senate Bill 3, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick orchestrated a press conference that deserves recognition—not for its policy insights, but for its breathtaking commitment to fabrication. Patrick's performance brimmed with hyperbole, bristled with misinformation, and advanced legally dubious claims about Texas hemp products and the businesses that sell them. His rhetoric sought to terrorize audiences, demonize an entire industry, and cast the Governor as marijuana legalization's unwitting accomplice.

Yet what emerged from that press conference—perhaps for the first time in such crystalline relief—transcends mere political spin. Patrick has not simply stumbled into error or "fudged the facts." He has constructed an entire legislative campaign upon a foundation of demonstrably false, defamatory, and incendiary claims.

Building a comprehensive political strategy around so many disprovable assertions requires deliberate effort and sustained commitment to deception. Patrick has achieved exactly that. For years, he cloaked his prohibitionist agenda in public safety rhetoric and moral posturing. This morning, however, the mask slipped. The press conference exposed the architecture of his disinformation operation: nearly every substantive claim he advanced proved false, misleading, logically fallacious, or outright defamatory.

So what drives Dan Patrick's escalating campaign of mendacity? Why does he persist as his narrative crumbles under scrutiny? The answer likely resides in the politics of fear, power, and strategic distraction—coupled with what appears to be systematic protection of entrenched interests within Texas's Compassionate Use Program (TCUP.)

PATRICK'S GREATEST HITS: 18 LIES, FALLACIES, AND FANTASIES

Deption designed to serve interests beyond public safety.

The timing and intensity of Patrick's offensive suggests a more troubling motive: protecting the state's Compassionate Use Program (TCUP) from market competition. By annihilating the legal hemp industry under false pretenses of child protection, Patrick shields entrenched TCUP license holders—many with documented political connections—from competing in an open marketplace.

This arrangement benefits a select cartel of state-approved cannabis operators while artificially inflating their market value. Meanwhile, consumers abandon expensive, limited TCUP products for affordable, effective hemp alternatives. Patrick's prohibition campaign eliminates this competitive threat while maintaining the fiction of principled drug policy.

The mathematics prove illuminating. TCUP licenses trade for millions of dollars precisely because artificial scarcity guarantees monopolistic returns. Hemp's legal status threatens this arrangement by offering consumers choice, competition, and market prices. Patrick's crusade preserves regulatory capture while disguising economic protectionism as moral crusading.

CONCLUSION: CALCULATED DECEPTION IN SERVICE OF ENTRENCHED INTERESTS

Lt. Gov. Patrick's press conference represents more than a nadir in Texas cannabis policy discourse—it exposes the corruption lurking beneath prohibitionist rhetoric. His remarks distort facts, ignore legal precedent, and weaponize moral panic to serve narrow economic interests. While accusing others of poisoning children and undermining Texas values, his own campaign of systematic deception poses the greater threat to honest governance and informed public discourse.

Patrick's strategy no longer deserves characterization as mere political hyperbole or policy disagreement. Eighteen documented fabrications reveal calculated mendacity designed to eliminate market competition while preserving regulatory capture. The legislature, media, and public should respond accordingly—not to Patrick's manufactured moral panic, but to the economic corruption his crusade serves to protect.

This isn't drug policy. This is a shakedown wrapped in a culture war.

By S. Jay "MadDawgg" Maguire