AUSTIN, Texas — Many new Texas laws took effect September 1, including a law that makes it illegal to sell certain vapes. A provision within that legislation, however, is already causing confusion….
Daniel Mehler, a cannabis attorney representing several shops across the state, criticized the law, which makes it a Class A misdemeanor to sell certain vapes and cartridges, for harming Texas businesses whose main source of revenue is usually from the sale of vape cartridges containing cannabinoids.
“They can’t market products, they can’t promote these products for sale,” Mehler said. “They can still be purchased online from out-of-state vendors, but in most cases these are a third, sometimes a little bit more, of the business that a lot of these shops are doing and we’re just causing it to be taken off the shelves of Texas businesses while the endgame is Texas consumers, Texas users, are still gonna have access to these products.”
The legislation clearly bans the sale and marketing of certain products, “but there’s an issue with this law in that it does not prohibit possession,” he said…
“The vast majority of the media is saying that this is a ban on these things, and people are interpreting that to mean possession is illegal,” Mehler said. “And so we’re going to see a lot of law enforcement pulling them out of people’s pockets, people getting booked into jail, and then we’re going to end up in court, and the statute’s very clear that it does not mention possession anywhere.”
“It’s not illegal for a consumer to to have one, to use one,” Mehler said of the types of vapes and vape cartridges covered in the new law. “They just can’t buy it and they can’t sell it in Texas.”