How Texas police officers and a crime laboratory criminalize the legal cannabis industry for profit

OP / ED

Legal hemp dealers are searched throughout the state, their employees are arrested and their business is closed. The reason is not just an outdated law enforcement tactic – it is a forensic trap that was exploited by police and crime laboratories to transform legal hemp into “illegal marijuana”. And nobody benefits more from this science fiction than from Armstrong Forensic Laboratory, the preferred test partner for dozens of law enforcement authorities in Texas. In Texas, legality is not always security, especially if you are in the hemp business.

At the center of this problem is THCA, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid and a forerunner of Delta-9 THC, the connection that is responsible for the intoxicating effects of marijuana. The Texas law is clear: hemp is legal if it does not contain more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC due to dry weight. THCA is not critically regulated by the Texas Statute at all.

However, if laboratories use gas-chromatography mass spectrometry to test hemp products, the heat from the machine causes decarboxylation and convert chemically THCA into Delta-9 THC. In short, a legal connection becomes “illegal” during the test itself.

This is not only scientifically misleading. According to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, there is a risk of creating completely wrong criminal evidence.

“The GC-MS method used in this case did not contain any derivatization.

This means that the reported THC may not be available in the sample at all – it may have come from legal THCA and is chemically changed in the laboratory.

“Although the conversion is not 100% complete, the” total ” -thc identified by the laboratory may have from THCA,” says the TFSC final report.

Why is this incorrect method still used? Because it serves a purpose – and a profitable one.

The Forensic Laboratory in Armstrong calculates almost 300 US dollars per sample, far beyond the forms of industry. It consistently creates results that justify raids and arrests. The law enforcement receives headlines and conviction statistics. The laboratory is paid. And nobody has to answer difficult questions about science.

Internal communication that our office has received show that Dr. Kelly Wouters, director of the Armstrong Forensic Laboratory, offered her own legal interpretations and explained that “THCA is not a legal substance” – an explanation that directly contradicts the Texas law and the position of the Texas department for agriculture.

“The results of the laboratory are reported as a total of THC, to which THC, THCA,-or both,” says the DPS quality of qualification in March 2025.

Translation: The laboratory cannot recognize the difference, but your product will still be illegal. These raids are not only scientifically faulty-faulting services that are carefully planned to create fear and public support for Senate Bill 3, a comprehensive anti-Hemp law draft, which Lt. Governor Dan Patrick was pushed.

The strategy is simple: RAID Legal Hanf Stores, take products, lead them through a laboratory that flashes THC numbers, arrest humans and then indicate the growing number of cases, as proof that Hanf represents a threat to the health and security of the public. It is the classic routine “Create the problem and then the solution”.

Timing is not subtle. These arrests have increased during the legislative period when Patrick SB3 urges the most hemp-derived THC products. Patrick supervises the Ministry of Public Security. DPS is based on the Forensic Armstrong Laboratory. They deliver the laboratory reports and these reports are presented as justification for the achievement of new laws.

“In the Texas legislator, considerable efforts are currently being made to ban the technical THC products,” says the TFSC final report.

This is not a political design-it is panicked in order to quickly pursue a ban that could not withstand the honest debate.

And do not make a mistake: by using GC-MS to convert legal THCA into illegal THC, it does through the back door of the enforcement, which cannot yet do through the front door of the legislation-hemp through the misfortune.

Ordering someone based on chemically changed evidence is not just a scientific failure – it is a constitutional law.

“There is a risk that the customer (courts and/ or law enforcement authorities) can interpret the results incorrectly,” says the DPS report of quality quality.

“In the public interest, it is undoubtedly that Crime Laboratories are transparent and clear in their declarations of report … and disclose relevant restrictions in order to protect the shooters against invalid conclusions or to cause the judge or the jury,” said TFSC final report.

However, transparency is not the goal. The goal is conviction.

And in this new reality it doesn't matter what the law says – it is only important what the laboratory report says.

If you are a journalist, political decision -makers or just someone who believes that science and justice are important, ask yourself: Why do laboratories use heat -based tests that chemically change evidence?

Why does the law enforcement agencies use the most expensive laboratory in Texas, which is known that he is tackling THC results?

Why is THCA criminalized without a legislative debate or a legal change?

The answers are uncomfortable. But the truth is urgent.

If you believe that the war against hemp is for security, think about it again. It's about control.

It's about money. And it's about keeping war on drugs alive – even if science says that it is over.

David Sergi is a lawyer, and Kyler Rucker is a lawyer with Sergi and Associates, a law firm based in San Marcos.