New Texas THC rule enforcement begins Wednesday
- barneyelias0
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
October 01 2025
The Brief
New TABC emergency rules on hemp-derived THC products will be enforced starting Wednesday.
The rules ban sales to people under 21 and mandate age verification for all sales.
Violations of the rules can result in a business's TABC permit or license being canceled.
TEXAS - Emergency THC regulations put into place earlier in September will be enforced starting on Wednesday.
The rules, issued by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, were announced as part of the new state effort to prevent minors from accessing the substance.
New Texas THC rule enforcement
What's new:
Just over a week after the Sept. 23 announcement of the rules, enforcement will now begin.
The first rule adopted prohibits sales of consumable hemp products to minors. The second mandates age verification for selling the products as a whole.
The reasons given for adopting the rules are to prevent minors from accessing and using the products, which they say have negative impacts on young brains; to prevent overall negative impacts on "general welfare and public safety"; and to comply with Abbott’s order.
Violations of the emergency rules will result in cancellation of the seller’s TABC permit or license, the announcement says.
Texas THC executive order
The backstory:
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order leading to the new rules on Sept. 10. The order mandates the following:
Preventing sales to minors now making it a crime to sell hemp-derived products to them.
Sales near schools, churches and other sensitive locations are not allowed under the executive order.
Stores are not allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of those facilities.
Enhanced testing and increased fees include ongoing monitoring for manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
The State Health Department is to team up with Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission on regulations.
Stores who fail to comply could risk losing their licenses.
The order came after a session-long attempt to ban the products outright. Alongside his order, Abbott justified his failure to sign the first bill passed by the legislature.
"There's one thing everybody agreed with, and that is we should ban it for kids. We tried to get that ban passed, and because it didn't pass, I wanted to use this opportunity to make sure that I empowered the state department of health services to do what is already within their regulatory power," said Governor Greg Abbott.
What is THC?
Dig deeper:
THC is an acronym for tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the active chemical compound in cannabis.
The compound produces a "high" when smoked, ingested, or otherwise consumed. Cannabis itself contains delta-9 THC in a high enough concentration to produce these effects, but hemp, which was legalized in the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, does not.
Hemp does, however, contain a wide range of CBD (a non-psychoactive compound commonly used for mild therapeutic benefits) and psychoactive THC derivatives in negligible amounts. The THC derivatives, like delta-8 and THC-A, can be extracted from legal hemp and concentrated into effective volumes.
These compounds, which are not technically "true" THC and therefore skirt the "below 0.3 percent" rule, have created a booming industry of legal products that allow residents in Texas and other states with marijuana bans to get the desired effects of cannabis without risking criminal charges.
Critics of THC derivatives regard the industry as a dangerous, unregulated result of a carelessly created legal loophole; proponents of the products point to veterans and others who suffer from PTSD and comparable afflictions who use the products for their medical benefits.
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