Fog House owner anxious over THC ban’s fate

A bill containing an outright ban on the manufacture and sale of products containing THC in Texas currently sits on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, waiting for his approval or veto.

Anxiously awaiting the outcome of Abbott’s decision is Nicole Drake, manager of Fog House, a local vape shop on East Blanco Road.

“A lot of them (customers) are elderly. Several of them have children who are autistic and use it as medicine,” Drake said. “These are people with real problems, who are using THC for real reasons.”

The Texas House passed a bill Monday — identical to a version approved by the Senate on Sunday — that would prohibit the manufacture, sale and possession of hemp-derived products that contain cannabinoids, other than CBD or CBG.

With 60% of her inventory being THC-consuming products, Drake’s business will be affected — crippled — by a ban that will likely drive her and the state’s other 5,000 vape-CBD stores out of business.

“If this hits, my plan is already in place — pack up my things and move back home to Seattle,” Drake said. “It will completely destroy the life that I built here.”

In June, Abbott vetoed a similar bill banning all hemp products from manufacture and sale in Texas.

Passage of the bill banning THC is a cornerstone of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priorities this legislative session.

“Since 2023, thousands of stores selling hazardous THC products have popped up in communities across the state,” Patrick said, “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.

“Under (these bills), these products, and all forms of THC, will be banned in Texas,” Patrick added.

According to Texas Cannabis Policy Center, passage of the ban will create an even bigger issue, by handing off a profitable industry to a shadow market — a.k.a. drug dealing — that has no regulations.

Drake, Fog House manager since 2019 shares the sentiment, aware that people will find a way to get what they want.

“(It will) definitely give money back to the dealers, because people who smoke weed are not going to quit smoking weed, it’s just not going to happen,” she said.

Drake is doing her part to stop this bill from being passed. She wrote a letter to Gov. Abbott in June when the first ban, Senate Bill 3, was introduced.

In it, she expressed her passion for the community she serves and the importance of what she sells in her stores.

A section from Drake’s letter reads: “This bill would wipe out my livelihood overnight, erasing years of honest work, investment and service. But more than that, it would harm the very people our laws should be protecting — those who rely on these products to function, to sleep, to heal and to live with dignity.”

When Abbott vetoed the bill, she was excited for a chance to continue her business.

But with the ongoing fight and the THC ban bills afloat, she was brought to tears, thinking about how both the service she provides, and the resource available, could be taken away.

With the simple stroke of a pen.