It does not appear that Texas crime labs are yet equipped to detect the portion of tetrahydrocannabinol in cannabis. Industrial hemp is now iegal in Texas. Generally, the legal difference between legal hemp and illegal marijuana is the level of THC in the cannabis. Hemp looks and smells like marijuana. The transportation of hemp is regulated. if otherwise legal hemp is transported contrary to the regulations, that transportation is a crime. Fot a while, though, enforcement of marijuana laws in Texas is going to be difficult for law enforcement when defendants are represented by knowledgeable lawyers, because prosecutors are going to have a hard time proving that what they caught defendants with was illegal marijuana instead of legal hemp.

This change in the law may have an even broader effect as to the reasons peace officers search vehicles. A favorite excuse of theirs is that they smell cannabis on the driver, a passenger, or generally in the vehicle. Now that some cannabis is legal in Texas, just smelling cannabis alone will not be a basis for searching a vehicle because what it being smelled might be legal hemp or arguably legal CBD oil.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT POLICE WILL GIVE UP CHARGING AND ARRESTING PEOPLE FOR MARIJUANA POSSESSION, especially in rural and semi-rural Texas counties like Collin (County Seat- McKinney, Largest City- Plano), Fort Bend (County Seat-Richmond, Largest City-Sugar Land), Montgomery (County Seat- Conroe, Largest Community- The Woodlands), and Williamson (County Seat-Georgetown, Largest City- Round Rock.). You may well be as likely to get arrested as before. It's just that with a quality, experienced lawyer, you're more likely to beat the rap.

There's more to say about this, but news has been poppin' lately what with the Texas Legislature's new laws mostly rolling out September 1, the end of the annual term of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that summer means that people get outside more- law enforcement officers and the rest of us.