Voters Fired the Judges in Texas's Hemp Case. The Dec. 8 Hearing Went With Them

Zubair Hassan has spent three years building Z's Smoke Shop in Houston, working seven days a week and often 12 hours a day. Since Texas health regulators' hemp rules took effect at the end of March, he says, the shop has lost 60 to 70 percent of its revenue. Last week he told KHOU that the store would not close, but that it would stop being what it was. He is turning it into a coffee and boba shop. (S1)

Hassan was asked about the election, in which Texans threw out the lieutenant governor who had made banning THC products his cause, and he called it very good news for the industry. Then he added the line that every hemp retailer in the state could have said. "Me personally, I can't wait a year," he said. "I don't even want to wait a month." (S1)

Two days after the vote, on Thursday, Nov. 5, the clerk of Texas's Fifteenth Court of Appeals, Michael A. Cruz, sent a two-sentence letter to the lawyers in Texas Department of State Health Services v. Texas Hemp Business Council. Submission and oral argument, "previously set for Tuesday, December 8, 2026," was "this date cancelled," it said. "The cause will be reset for submission at a later date." The letterhead still listed the court's three justices: Chief Justice Scott Brister and Justices Scott Field and April Farris. All three had lost their seats on Nov. 3. (S2, S3)

The letter moved the most important pending case for Texas hemp sellers from a court appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to one elected in a Democratic sweep. It means the state's appeal of an order that once blocked its THCA rules will be heard, at the earliest, by Jerry Zimmerer, Tom Baker and Marc M. Meyer, who take office in early January. Meanwhile the rules stay in force, a federal hemp redefinition is set to start Dec. 11, and a Legislature that convenes Jan. 12 will include a new presiding officer in the Senate who says the agency never had the power to write them. (S3, S4, S5, S6, S15)

The case was close to its moment. The industry plaintiffs, led by the Texas Hemp Business Council and the Hemp Industry and Farmers of America, had won a temporary injunction from a Travis County district court in the spring. The state appealed on May 6. On June 5, the Fifteenth Court denied the industry's emergency motion to keep the injunction in force, which put the rules back into effect while the appeal proceeded. Briefing closed in September, an amicus brief arrived Oct. 1, and the council told members in October that each side would get 20 minutes before the justices on Dec. 8 at 9:30 a.m. (S2, S7)

The rules themselves have not changed. Adopted by the Department of State Health Services for a March 31 effective date, they fold THCA into a total-THC measure that makes most smokable hemp flower fail, add age, labeling and testing requirements, and raise fees. DSHS now lists a consumable hemp product license at $10,300 per location and a retail registration at $5,150, both including the Texas Online fee. The Texas Tribune reported that the underlying fees rose from $258 to $10,000 for manufacturers and from $155 to $5,000 for retailers. (S5, S8, S14)

The court gave its reason through one of the outgoing justices. "We know we can't get the opinion out for cases orally argued before the end of the year so we don't want to waste the lawyers' time with an argument if there's a chance the new court will also want to hear argument," Field told Bloomberg Law. The cancellation lets the current justices finish opinions in 39 cases already argued or submitted, the Texas Tribune reported. Arguments set for Dec. 8 and 9 in three other cases, including a dispute over a South Austin homeless shelter and two tax fights involving Comptroller Don Huffines and Attorney General Ken Paxton, were also cancelled. (S5, S9)

The court itself is new. Lawmakers created the Fifteenth Court of Appeals in 2023 with statewide jurisdiction over civil cases involving the state and appeals from the new Business Court, and Abbott appointed its three justices in 2024. Nov. 3 was its first election. Each Democrat won with about 52 percent, according to unofficial results reported by the Texas Secretary of State and compiled by The Texan. "I don't think there's ever been a Court of Appeals where all of the judges were replaced on one day," Brister told The Texas Lawbook. (S3, S10)

For hemp sellers, the court is only one of three changes at once. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who led the push for Senate Bill 3, the 2025 ban Abbott vetoed, lost to Vikki Goodwin, an Austin state representative, by six points, KSAT reported. Patrick had said at a news conference: "I'm not going to legalize marijuana in Texas. And if people want to vote me out of office for that, so be it." Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa has said she wants to reverse the state's move to make possession of hemp-derived THC products a felony. (S4, S11, S12)

Goodwin has gone further than promising new laws. "We can reach out to the Department of State Health Services right away and let them know that they didn't have the authority to put in place the rules that they put in place recently," she told KHOU. That is the same argument the plaintiffs have made in court since spring. It is also an argument a lieutenant governor cannot win alone: the Senate she will preside over kept its Republican majority, according to the Associated Press as reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the agency answers to the governor. (S1, S4)

The people who fought the rules are reading the week as a vindication. David Sergi, a San Marcos lawyer who represents several of the plaintiffs and is listed on the cancellation notice, said of Patrick: "He threw down the challenge and we made him regret his words." Asked for the industry's mood in one word, he told NBC DFW: "Jubilation." Mark Bordas, executive director of the Texas Hemp Business Council, told KSAT he would put the odds of the full range of hemp THC products returning to shelves at "around seven out of 10." The council said on social media that its case "will now be heard in front of the new court in 2027." (S7, S11, S13, S14)

“We had been driven to the edge of the cliff by certain political figures in the state.”

— Mark Bordas, Executive Director, Texas Hemp Business Council

Not everyone sees a clear road. State Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican who wrote the 2025 THC vape ban, has said he will try again for a full ban. "States that regulate gain nothing," Perry said at a Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing in July, according to KCBD. Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Texas, which opposes the products, said in a statement that Texas families deserve leaders who protect public health "not politicians who promote commercial THC while ignoring its victims and are influenced by Big Cannabis." (S12, S13, S15)

Some of the industry's own leaders are hedging. Todd Harris, co-owner of Austin's Happy Cactus Co. and a former retail committee chair at the council, which the Austin American-Statesman says represents roughly 350 retailers, said he expects friendlier bills next summer but that the industry cannot recover what it lost. "Both sides have burned us, Democrats and Republicans," he said. Cynthia Cabrera, chief strategy officer at Hometown Hero and a former president of the council, told the Star-Telegram she would oppose recreational legalization if it came with limited licenses that forced hemp businesses to close. (S4, S12)

Then there is Washington. The federal change, which takes effect Dec. 11, bans hemp products with more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container, as KCBD summarized it. A Texas court ruling that restores the old testing pathways would not shield products that fail the federal definition. Bordas told KSAT he does not expect the Trump administration, or the incoming state leaders, to enforce it aggressively in Texas. "So what we do in Texas is going to be the rules of the game for hemp moving forward," he said. That is a prediction about enforcement, not a reading of the law. (S11, S15)

1. Dec. 11, 2026: Federal total-THC hemp definition and 0.4-milligram per-container cap take effect unless Congress acts.
2. Early January 2027: Justices Zimmerer, Baker and Meyer take their seats on the Fifteenth Court of Appeals; the court has said only that No. 15-26-00099-CV will be reset later.
3. Jan. 12, 2027: The Legislature convenes for a session that runs through May 31, with Goodwin presiding over a Republican-majority Senate.

The sequence matters most to stores like Hassan's. A new court could restore the injunction, or uphold the rules, months from now. A new lieutenant governor could steer bills that rewrite the law by summer. A new governor could press DSHS sooner. None of it changes what a Houston shop owner can legally put on his shelf this week. (S1, S2, S6)

Hassan told KHOU he believes more stores will close before the industry recovers, and that the ones that survive could profit tremendously if the restrictions are reversed. He is not betting his lease on finding out which. The case that was supposed to be argued on Dec. 8 now waits for a court that does not yet exist in its new form, and Z's Smoke Shop is learning to make boba. (S1)

Keep Reading

Supply Chain

After 900 DEA Registrations, a Nov. 29 Deadline to Cut Off Unregistered Cannabis Suppliers

A four-page DEA notice says registrants and timely applicants who keep buying from businesses that missed the June 26 window risk denial or revocation. The agency's own list counts 6,983 timely entries, 2,442 of them in Oklahoma.

By Cannabis Inc, Editorial Staff·8 min read

Supply Chain

Systems & technologyCannabis.Inc

Colorado's Auditor Put a Number on the Delay: 223 Days on Shelves Before the State Said Anything.

The Office of the State Auditor found that from 2023 through 2025, potentially harmful cannabis products stayed available to consumers an average of 223 days, just under 7.5 months, before the Marijuana Enforcement Division issued an advisory. The division agreed with every recommendation.

By Cannabis Inc, Editorial Staff·8 min read