Texas
Lt. Gov Dan Patrick pushes to “ban all forms” of THC in Texas
AUSTIN, Texas –
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to see an end to THC sales in the Lone Star State, claiming businesses are abusing a state law that allows hemp products.
This new push to end the commercialization of THC comes from a senator in Lubbock, who’s planning to file Senate Bill 3 for the 89th legislative session.
For Austin retailers, like Tribe CBD and Cannabinoids, a possible ban on THC is unwelcome news.
“For our business, that would be really tough for a THC ban,” said Dominick Canchola, the store manager of Tribe CBD and Cannabinoids. “A lot of people rely on THC as medicine.”
In 2019, lawmakers allowed for the commercialization of hemp, which includes products with THC under 0.3 percent. THC is the main psychoactive component of cannabis.
However, in the five years since, Patrick says THC has gotten out of hand.
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“These stores not only sold to adults, but they targeted Texas children and exposed them to dangerous levels of THC,” said Patrick. “Since 2023, thousands of stores selling hazardous THC products have popped up in communities across the state, and many sell products, including beverages, that have three to four times the THC content which might be found in marijuana purchased from a drug dealer.”
“At Tribe CBD we are definitely not doing any of that,” said Canchola. “We are very very thorough about what we do.”
An Austin criminal defense law firm, Michael and Associates, tested the Lt. Governor’s theory about high THC levels. They picked ten legal dispensaries across the state and then tested its Delta 9 THC and CBD edibles. All the gummies were under the 0.3 percent maximum but weighed at least four grams, the legal weight limit.
“Let’s say it’s a chocolate bar the size of a Hershey’s bar,” said criminal defense attorney Ben Michael. “While the weight of that chocolate bar can be many ounces, if you look at the actual percentage of THC within that number of ounces, it falls below 3 percent.”
Even if that chocolate bar has multiple servings, it still weighs more than four grams, so Michael said police can still make an arrest. He sees clients with the legal amount of THC arrested because their product weighs more than four grams, but at the time of the arrest, officers can’t prove it’s under 0.3 percent, so they err on the side of caution.
“Because it’s by weight, all you have to do is eat enough of it, and you can still get high,” said Michael.
His law firm also found a new type of THC that’s 25 times more potent, but he says it’s technically legal because it’s not the THC banned under the 2019 law.
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“So if you can tweak the chemical compound a little bit in a lab so that it does not equal Delta 9, it equals something new, then the bill doesn’t make it illegal,” said Michael.
The study also found that “10 percent of samples were close to the potency levels marked on the package or indicated by lab testing outcomes provided by the manufacturers. Some were significantly more potent than advertised, while others contained significantly less Delta-9 than promised.”
The bill would ban all forms of THC, ridding the state of these problems not outlined in the 2019 law, but retailers hope they’ll consider a different route.
“An overall hemp ban of THC specifically would be a really bad idea for our industry as a whole and just for the people in Texas,” said Canchola. “I believe that what we need to do is go towards regulation rather than banning all together, and we haven’t really put many efforts towards regulation at all, and I think that’s the first step that needs to happen before we just say that there shouldn’t be any at all.”
If the bill becomes law, the only exception to it would be the state’s Compassionate Use Program, which allows prescriptions of low-level THC.
The Source: Information in this report came from reporting and interviews by FOX 7 Austin’s Lauren Rangel.
Texas
ICE begins immigration raids across Texas
TEXAS — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted raids around Texas on Sunday, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Sally Sparks, DEA Houston Division spokesperson, told Spectrum News, “The DEA Houston division along with our Department of Justice partners, is assisting DHS and other federal law enforcement partners with their targeted enforcement actions.”
Sparks added that the raids occurred in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Brownsville and McAllen.
On Jan. 20 and 21, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency concerning immigration, enacting multiple executive orders.
The first group of active-duty military personnel arrived in El Paso and San Diego last week to bolster border security, according to defense officials.
The Associated Press reported on Jan. 23 that no requests had been made to use military bases for migrant housing or troops for law enforcement.
Texas
Multi-agency operation targeted immigrants in Austin and San Antonio
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Agents from multiple federal agencies carried out immigration enforcement operations in Austin and San Antonio on Sunday, federal officials said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives collaborated on “enhanced targeted operations” in both cities, an ICE spokesperson said. A similar operation took place Sunday morning in the Rio Grande Valley, a local station reported.
The spokesperson said the operations were to “enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” The official did not say what kind of offenses the targeted individuals were suspected of committing or whether anyone was detained.
KXAN first reported ICE was conducting an operation in the Austin area on Sunday afternoon through a spokesperson for the DEA’s Houston division. DEA spokesperson Sally Sparks said the agency’s Houston office “mobilized every agent in our division,” whose jurisdiction spans from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, Del Rio and Waco.
“We got information that we had to mobilize, so we mobilized,” Sparks told The Texas Tribune. “The majority of our agents assisted.”
A Houston DEA post on X on Sunday showed photos of law enforcement officers in a residential area escorting a man in handcuffs.
Neither ICE nor the DEA answered questions about the scale of the operations. Spokespeople for the Travis and Bexar counties’ sheriff’s offices said they had not been notified of the operations. A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said Doggett did not receive advance notice that ICE would conduct an operation in Austin.
Sunday’s operations came less than one week after President Donald Trump began his second term as president and promised mass deportations across the country. Trump issued more than a dozen immigration-related executive orders last week, including halting the use of an app that lets migrants make appointments to request asylum and authorizing immigration officers to raid sensitive locations such as churches, schools and hospitals.
The Trump administration has also directed federal officials to investigate and potentially prosecute local officials who interfere with deportation efforts. Some local Texas officials said they are ready to assist Trump, though they have offered scant details on how they would cooperate. A group of Texas lawmakers asked state education officials last week for clear guidance on how school districts should prepare for federal immigration enforcement.
Federal officials also conducted raids in Chicago on Sunday, and ICE officials have been directed to increase the number of people they arrest from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, The Washington Post reported Sunday. ICE made 956 arrests Sunday and sent 554 requests to take custody of individuals currently being held in jails, prisons or other confinement facilities, the agency said in a Sunday evening post on X.
Trump’s actions over the past week have left some migrants stranded on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the threat of deportation has left others in fear. Texas is home to approximately 1.6 million undocumented people, according to a Pew Research Center Report.
Texas
First soaking storm of 2025 brings heavy rain, flooding concerns to North Texas
Following a nice and above-average start to the weekend, a cold front swept through North Texas overnight, bringing light rain to kick off Sunday.
Shower coverage will be fairly isolated in the Dallas Fort-Worth area and will only stick around for about the first half of the day. However, scattered showers may persist in eastern and southeastern counties.
As far as temperatures go, North Texas will feel about a 10-degree drop from Saturday, with highs falling back below average to the lower 50s this afternoon.
Looking ahead to the start of the new workweek, expect partly cloudy skies on Monday, with highs in the mid-50s.
By Tuesday, clouds build back in, but a southerly flow sends temperatures back to the upper 50s, approaching 60 degrees.
Tuesday afternoon and evening will mark the beginning of a significant weather shift.
Scattered showers roll in Tuesday evening as an area of low-pressure heads through the southwestern U.S.
This low-pressure system will continue its eastward track, bringing heavy, soaking rains on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
For this reason, CBS News Texas meteorologists have issued First Alert Weather Days for all three days, warning of soaking rains, a few thunderstorms and the potential for some flooding, especially from Thursday into Friday.
Temperature-wise, North Texas will remain near- and above-normal throughout the extended forecast.
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