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Texas Marijuana Laws Status June 2026: Comprehensive Guide to Hemp, TCUP, and Decriminalization

A comprehensive analysis of the Texas cannabis landscape in June 2026, examining strict DSHS retail hemp bans, the massive expansion of the TCUP medical oligopoly, and the judicial crackdown on local decriminalization.

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Texas Marijuana Laws Status June 2026: Comprehensive Guide to Hemp, TCUP, and Decriminalization

As Texas aggressively dismantles the unregulated retail hemp market and systematically strikes down municipal decriminalization ordinances, the state is simultaneously orchestrating a massive expansion of its medical cannabis framework, creating a profound and highly regulated shift for operators, investors, and consumers alike.

Key Highlights: June 2026 Policy Dashboard

  • Retail Hemp Market: The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) implemented rules on March 31, 2026, officially banning smokable hemp and redefining the THC threshold to include THCA. This action effectively collapses the state's multibillion-dollar retail flower and vape markets, forcing independent retailers to pivot exclusively to low-THC edibles, tinctures, and topicals under strict 21+ age-gating requirements.
  • Medical Cannabis (TCUP): Following the enactment of House Bill 46, the Texas Compassionate Use Program has undergone an unprecedented expansion. The state has authorized pulmonary inhalation (vaporizers), increased dosage limits to 10mg per dose, broadened qualifying conditions to include chronic pain and PTSD, and increased the number of vertical licenses from three to fifteen, establishing a highly profitable medical oligopoly.
  • Municipal Decriminalization: Attorney General Ken Paxton has successfully weaponized state preemption laws to crush local decriminalization efforts. In April 2025, the governor-appointed Fifteenth Court of Appeals struck down voter-approved ordinances in Austin and San Marcos, triggering a chilling effect that has forced cities like Denton, Elgin, Bastrop, and Lockhart to repeal or abandon their non-enforcement policies.
  • Federal Regulatory Shifts: A dual-track federal approach is reshaping Texas. The April 2026 DOJ decision to move medical cannabis to Schedule III eliminates the punitive Section 280E tax burden for TCUP operators. Conversely, the impending November 2026 Continuing Appropriations Act imposes a 0.4mg total THC limit per container, threatening to extinguish the remaining 95% of the hemp-derived product market nationwide.

Section 1: The Contraction of the Texas Retail Hemp Market

The evolution of the Texas retail hemp industry serves as a quintessential case study in regulatory arbitrage followed by swift, comprehensive state suppression. From its inception following the 2018 Federal Farm Bill and the subsequent passage of Texas House Bill 1325 in 2019, the market operated in a gray area, exploiting legislative loopholes that permitted the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoids. However, the first half of 2026 has witnessed the total dismantling of this framework, as state agencies, directed by executive mandates, have executed a synchronized campaign to eliminate unregulated retail access to psychoactive hemp derivatives.

The foundational disruption to the retail hemp sector was initiated by Governor Greg Abbott following the 2025 legislative session. When a highly publicized legislative ban on high-THC hemp products faced procedural hurdles, Governor Abbott intervened directly, signing Executive Order GA-56 in September 2025. This executive directive bypassed the gridlocked legislature and immediately mobilized the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) to weaponize their existing statutory and administrative authority to comprehensively clean up the retail hemp marketplace. The immediate consequence of this mobilization was the enactment of Senate Bill 2024, which took effect in September 2025, imposing an absolute, categorical ban on the retail sale of any vape or e-cigarette product containing cannabinoids. This ban did not distinguish between intoxicating compounds like Delta-8 THC and non-intoxicating therapeutic compounds like Cannabidiol (CBD); if the product was designed for pulmonary administration via electronic vaporization, it was instantly rendered illegal. Concurrently, the state mandated a strict age requirement, dictating that consumers must be 21 years of age or older and possess a valid photo identification to purchase any hemp product, regardless of its chemical composition.

While the September 2025 vape ban eliminated a massive revenue stream for independent smoke shops and dispensaries, the definitive regulatory execution of the Texas retail hemp market occurred on March 31, 2026. On this date, the DSHS implemented sweeping new enforcement rules that fundamentally altered the biochemical legal architecture of hemp in the state. The most consequential component of these rules was the official redefinition of "Total THC" for compliance testing. Previously, the industry relied on a standard that measured only Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol, which allowed cultivators to legally breed and sell raw cannabis flower with massive concentrations of Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA). Because THCA is non-intoxicating until it is exposed to thermal decarboxylation (heat)—at which point it converts into Delta-9 THC—retailers effectively sold high-potency marijuana under the legal guise of hemp. The March 31 rules closed this loophole permanently by mandating that regulatory testing must calculate Total THC by mathematically combining the percentage of Delta-9 THC with the percentage of THCA.

Because the vast majority of raw hemp flower on the market relies on high THCA concentrations to deliver psychoactive effects to the end consumer, this redefinition instantly pushed virtually all retail hemp flower well over the 0.3% legal threshold, rendering the inventory illegal. Furthermore, the DSHS did not rely solely on the chemical recalculation; the agency instituted a blunt, categorical prohibition on the retail sale of all smokable hemp products. As of March 31, 2026, it is entirely illegal to sell hemp flower, raw hemp buds intended for combustion, or pre-rolled hemp cigarettes and joints anywhere in the State of Texas. The regulatory intent is unmistakable: any hemp product designed to be inhaled, whether through the vaporizers banned in September 2025 or the combustible flower banned in March 2026, is now completely excised from the Texas retail economy.

The implementation of these aggressive enforcement mechanisms triggered immediate and sophisticated legal warfare. The Texas Hemp Business Council, heavily backed by the Hemp Industry and Farmers of America, initiated a massive legal challenge, filing a comprehensive 330-page lawsuit in Travis County. The plaintiffs argued that the DSHS and TABC had grossly exceeded their statutory authority, acting as a shadow legislature to enact bans that the actual Texas Legislature had failed to pass. Initially, the industry secured a critical, albeit ephemeral, tactical victory. Travis County District Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle converted an initial Temporary Restraining Order into a broader temporary injunction, effectively blocking the statewide enforcement of the DSHS Total THC standard and the smokable flower ban. This injunction was designed to protect retailers and cultivators from prosecution pending a full trial on the merits, which was scheduled for July 27, 2026.

However, this judicial relief lasted less than a month. Utilizing the aggressive appellate strategies that have become a hallmark of the Texas Attorney General's Office, the state filed an interlocutory appeal on May 7, 2026. Under Texas procedural law, this action automatically stayed the lower court’s injunction, immediately reinstating the devastating DSHS rules and the ban on THCA and smokable products. The long-term litigation prospects for the Texas hemp industry were further diminished by a concurrent and highly anticipated ruling from the Texas Supreme Court regarding the legal status of Delta-8 THC. On the exact same day the state appealed the Travis County injunction, the highest court in Texas formally upheld the broad administrative authority of the DSHS to schedule synthetic cannabinoids. This ruling cast a massive shadow over the industry's ongoing litigation, signaling profound judicial deference to state health agencies attempting to regulate, restrict, or ban psychoactive hemp derivatives.

The structural realignment of these enforcement mechanisms has inflicted catastrophic economic consequences on the Texas hemp supply chain. Independent retailers, local cultivators, and mid-level manufacturers have been forced to write off millions of dollars in stranded, unsellable inventory. Operators desperately attempting to survive this market contraction have been forced into a rapid and precarious retail pivot. Businesses must now rely exclusively on non-inhalable products that strictly adhere to the newly recalculated 0.3% Total THC limit. The surviving product landscape is now limited to non-intoxicating CBD oils, sublingual tinctures, rigorously formulated edible gummies, capsules, and topicals such as lotions, balms, and transdermal patches. While hemp-infused beverages remain technically legal under the current framework, the economic viability of this narrow product spectrum remains highly questionable, particularly as the retail space prepares for even more draconian federal changes scheduled for late 2026. The state has successfully utilized administrative rulemaking to achieve what it could not easily accomplish through standard legislation: the virtual eradication of the unregulated psychoactive cannabinoid market.

Section 2: The Expansion of the Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP)

In profound contrast to the punitive destruction of the retail hemp market, the Texas Legislature has systematically modernized, expanded, and centralized the control and distribution of cannabis within a highly regulated, physician-supervised medical oligopoly. The passage of House Bill 46, signed by Governor Abbott in June 2025 and officially enacted in September 2025, represents the most significant and transformative advancement in Texas medical cannabis policy since the inception of the Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP). By shifting consumers away from corner-store smoke shops and funneling them directly into the state-controlled Compassionate Use Registry of Texas (CURT), the state asserts total regulatory oversight over cultivation, clinical application, taxation, and consumption.

Historically, TCUP was heavily criticized by medical professionals, researchers, and patient advocacy groups for its archaic restrictions. Prior to the recent legislative overhaul, the program imposed a highly restrictive 1% THC limit by weight and strictly prohibited any form of administration other than oral ingestibles, such as swallowable oils and sublingual tinctures. House Bill 46 systematically dismantled these pharmacological limitations, fundamentally altering the therapeutic capabilities of licensed physicians in Texas. First, the legislation discarded the arbitrary 1% THC limit by weight, replacing it with a standardized, pharmaceutical dosage model. Products are now capped at 10 milligrams of THC per individual dose, with a total packaging limit of 1 gram of THC per container. This critical shift allows licensed manufacturers to produce highly potent, lower-volume delivery methods, significantly reducing the amount of inert carrier oil patients must ingest to reach therapeutic cannabinoid levels, thereby reducing gastrointestinal distress and improving bioavailability.

More profoundly, House Bill 46 legally authorized non-smoked pulmonary inhalation—specifically, the vaporization of medical cannabis and the use of targeted aerosol devices—when deemed medically necessary by a registered physician. Following the legislature's decision, the DSHS rapidly approved specific proprietary vape devices and concentrated cannabis products exclusively for the medical market. The timing of this regulatory approval was a masterclass in state-sponsored market substitution: exactly as the state banned all unregulated retail hemp vapes in September 2025 via Senate Bill 2024, it simultaneously opened the door for highly taxed, tightly regulated, and vertically integrated medical vapes under TCUP. Patients who lost access to gray-market inhalables were effectively forced to migrate into the medical registry to secure legal, lab-tested vaporizers.

To feed this newly modernized delivery system, the 2025 expansion fundamentally broadened the addressable market by adding highly prevalent and statistically significant medical conditions to the program. Prior to House Bill 46, TCUP access was largely restricted to terminal cancer, intractable epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and a narrow spectrum of severe neurological disorders. The most consequential addition under the new legislation is the inclusion of chronic pain, encompassing severe neuropathic pain. To qualify under this category, a patient must experience continuous or intermittent severe pain lasting more than 90 days and must have actively undergone clinical treatment for that duration. The inclusion of chronic pain is a monumental paradigm shift, allowing physicians across the state to prescribe medical cannabis as a direct, legal alternative to highly addictive opioid analgesics. Furthermore, the state codified several new standalone qualifying conditions, heavily driven by veteran advocacy groups. These include Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which covers debilitating conditions such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Broad categories for terminal illness and palliative care were also introduced, allowing physicians to utilize cannabis for comprehensive symptom management, appetite stimulation, and relief from the extreme physiological stress of living with serious, life-limiting illnesses.

To accommodate the massive influx of newly eligible patients—particularly the vast demographic seeking chronic pain and PTSD management—the legislation mandated a vast expansion of the state's highly centralized cultivation and distribution infrastructure. House Bill 46 increased the statutory cap on vertically integrated dispensing organization licenses from three to fifteen. Additionally, the law formally authorized these vertically integrated operators to establish satellite distribution locations across the expansive state geography, alleviating the severe logistical bottlenecks that previously forced patients to rely heavily on expensive courier deliveries. This expansion shattered the longstanding oligopoly held by the original three licensees, introducing a new era of highly capitalized competition. In early 2026, following stringent regulatory vetting and unexpected corrections to the grading matrix, the state issued conditional licenses to new entrants. Companies such as Bayou City Medical Dispensary, Sawtooth Texas LLC, and Bluebonnet Technologies successfully secured coveted positions among the expanded class of licensed medical operators, immediately initiating massive capital expenditures to build out cultivation facilities and retail footprints.

The internal expansion of TCUP is heavily amplified by historic, concurrent shifts at the federal level. Following a December 2025 Executive Order issued by President Trump, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) officially moved state-licensed medical cannabis and FDA-approved cannabis products from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act on April 23, 2026. This action represents the most consequential federal drug policy reform in over fifty years and fundamentally alters the financial architecture of the Texas medical market. The immediate and most profound economic implication for the fifteen licensed TCUP operators is the complete elimination of Internal Revenue Code Section 280E. Historically, Section 280E prevented businesses trafficking in Schedule I or II substances from deducting ordinary operational business expenses—such as payroll, rent, marketing, and security—from their gross income. This draconian tax code resulted in punitive effective federal tax rates ranging from 70 to 80 percent, starving operators of capital. By reclassifying medical cannabis to Schedule III, the DOJ has instantly transformed the financial viability of the Texas operators. Freed from 280E, these vertically integrated companies can now operate under standard corporate tax structures, allowing them to rapidly reinvest massive capital into agricultural scaling, research and development, and geographic expansion across Texas.

Simultaneously, the federal government has begun systematically untangling the peripheral civil and healthcare restrictions historically tied to cannabis use, providing profound relief to Texas patients. In early June 2026, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) proposed critical updates to the federal gun purchase Form 4473. The revised form removes the broad, blanket language that historically warned all cannabis use was unlawful regardless of state law, opting instead to flag only non-medical recreational use as a federal prohibition. This critical distinction officially acknowledges that patients actively registered in state medical programs like TCUP now occupy a legally protected space, preserving their Second Amendment rights while receiving medical treatment. Furthermore, a highly experimental Medicare CBD pilot program has commenced, covering hemp-derived CBD for specific patients under doctor recommendation at no cost, marking the first historic step toward federal health insurance coverage for cannabis-derived products. However, the DOJ explicitly maintained the Schedule I status of non-medical cannabis, recreational products, and unlicensed sales, creating an unprecedented federal dichotomy where illicit marijuana remains categorized alongside heroin, while a physician-authorized TCUP vape cart is treated akin to testosterone or ketamine.

Section 3: Industry Implications and the War on Municipal Decriminalization

As the state centralizes the legitimate cannabis trade into the hands of a few highly capitalized medical operators—a transition detailed extensively in our internal Texas Dispensary Licensing Guide—it has simultaneously engaged in a relentless, scorched-earth judicial campaign to crush progressive municipal policies. While the retail hemp sector was dismantled by administrative rulemaking to restrict access to intoxicating items, pushing operators to seek Hemp THCA Flower Alternatives, the battle over minor marijuana possession has been fought in the highest appellate courts of Texas, resulting in the total suppression of local democratic initiatives.

Between 2022 and 2024, an unprecedented wave of grassroots municipal initiatives, largely spearheaded by progressive organizing groups like Ground Game Texas, successfully placed sweeping decriminalization measures on local ballots across the state. Driven by widespread public consensus that arresting individuals for trace amounts of cannabis was a catastrophic waste of taxpayer resources, voters in Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, Denton, Dallas, Bastrop, and Lockhart overwhelmingly approved propositions designed to severely restrict local law enforcement from executing arrests or issuing citations for minor marijuana possession.

These local ordinances, frequently titled "Freedom Acts," utilized intricate legal mechanisms to bypass state law. The general architecture of these policies required local police departments to entirely cease the enforcement of Class A and Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession laws—which cover quantities of 4 ounces or less, or 2 ounces or less, depending on the municipality's specific charter. The only permitted exceptions for arrest were if the minor possession was intrinsically linked to a high-priority felony narcotics investigation or a violent crime. Furthermore, ordinances like the Bastrop Freedom Act and the San Marcos Proposition A went significantly further by attacking the forensic capabilities of law enforcement. These policies explicitly prohibited the use of municipal funds for Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration testing, thereby stripping police of the expensive scientific ability to legally distinguish between illegal marijuana and legally protected hemp in a laboratory setting. Additionally, these ordinances strictly prohibited the use of cannabis odor as probable cause for search and seizure, neutralizing one of the most common justifications for traffic stop searches.

The rapid proliferation of these local ordinances across major population centers and university towns triggered an immediate and forceful response from the state apparatus. Viewing the ordinances as a direct challenge to the state's monopolistic authority over criminal justice, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton initiated high-profile litigation in early 2024 against five key municipalities: Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, and Denton. The Attorney General’s legal architecture relied heavily on an aggressive interpretation of state preemption doctrine, specifically invoking Section 370.003 of the Texas Local Government Code. This particular statute expressly forbids any political subdivision, municipality, or county from adopting policies under which the entity refuses to fully enforce laws relating to illicit drugs. Paxton argued vehemently in court filings that the local ordinances amounted to unconstitutional "amnesty and non-prosecution policies" that established a dangerous, fragmented patchwork of enforcement, fostered anarchy, and deliberately promoted the use of illicit substances linked to severe psychosis.

Initially, the state encountered stiff resistance at the trial court level, where local judges showed deference to the will of their voting constituencies. In Hays County, District Judge Sherri Tibbe dismissed the lawsuit against the city of San Marcos. Judge Tibbe ruled that the Attorney General lacked the necessary jurisdiction to sue the city over a voter-approved initiative and noted that the state suffered no tangible injury from a municipality choosing to reallocate its finite policing resources toward higher-priority violent crimes. Similarly, Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer dismissed the Attorney General's lawsuit against Austin, citing a fundamental lack of legal justification to proceed to trial.

However, the trajectory of municipal decriminalization in Texas was fundamentally reversed following the intervention of the state's newly formed Fifteenth Court of Appeals. Established during the 2023 legislative session specifically to hear complex cases involving state constitutional challenges and lawsuits brought by or against the State of Texas, this court consists entirely of judges appointed directly by the governor, effectively bypassing the historically Democratic-leaning appellate courts in jurisdictions like Travis and Dallas counties. In April 2025, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals systematically dismantled the lower court protections, delivering a fatal blow to the local decriminalization movement.

On April 17, 2025, the appellate court overturned the dismissal of the San Marcos case. The court ruled decisively that the voter-approved Proposition A was completely preempted by state law under the Local Government Code, granting a temporary injunction that immediately blocked its enforcement pending final trial. Exactly one week later, on April 24, 2025, the same court struck down the Austin decriminalization ordinance. In a ruling penned by Judge Scott Field, the court determined that the city had "abused its discretion" by erecting arbitrary barriers to the full enforcement of state drug statutes. The court established a hardline precedent: local municipalities cannot instruct their police forces to categorically ignore state drug laws, regardless of how large the voting margin in favor of decriminalization may be.

The aggressive posture of the Attorney General’s Office, validated and amplified by the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, has generated a profound chilling effect across all Texas municipalities, forcing widespread capitulation and the rapid unwinding of the decriminalization movement. Following the appellate rulings, and citing the irreconcilable conflict with state law highlighted by City Manager Sara Hensley, Denton city officials formally voted to repeal their voter-approved ordinance in 2025 to avoid catastrophic state litigation. Elgin avoided prolonged courtroom battles by entering into a consent decree with the state in the summer of 2025, legally agreeing not to enforce its decriminalization policy without formally admitting liability. Most notably, in municipalities where voters successfully passed decriminalization measures in 2024, such as Bastrop and Lockhart, city officials proactively refused to adopt or implement the ordinances entirely, citing the explicit and immediate fear of ruinous litigation from Attorney General Ken Paxton. Similarly, city leadership in Harker Heights actively blocked the adoption of their voter-approved ordinance to maintain strict alignment with state preemption statutes. While practical enforcement mechanisms may still vary slightly from county to county—as individual police officers retain some inherent discretionary power in making physical misdemeanor arrests—the legal authority of municipalities to formally instruct their officers to ignore state marijuana laws has been entirely liquidated by the state judiciary.

Compounding the intense state-level suppression is the impending apocalyptic impact of the federal government's crackdown on the remaining hemp market. The federal Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, signed into law in November 2025, fundamentally rewrote the federal definition of hemp, effectively closing the massive loophole that created the multibillion-dollar intoxicating cannabinoid market. Scheduled to take full enforcement effect on November 12, 2026, the law caps finished, hemp-derived cannabinoid products at a microscopic threshold of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. To understand the severity of this restriction, a standard, commercially available hemp-derived gummy typically contains 10 milligrams of THC per individual piece. The federal law dictates that an entire bottle of product cannot exceed 0.4 milligrams, surpassing the threshold by a factor of over twenty-five on a per-dose basis alone. This draconian federal limitation essentially reclassifies all hemp-based THC products—including Delta-8, Delta-9, THCA, THC-O, and HHC—back into Schedule I controlled substances in states like Texas that lack legal recreational frameworks. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable estimates that the November 2026 deadline will eliminate approximately 95% of existing hemp-derived products nationwide, putting over 300,000 jobs at extreme risk. Critically, this 0.4mg per container cap does not only target intoxicating synthetic analogs; it fundamentally destroys the market for full-spectrum, non-intoxicating CBD products relied upon by millions of seniors, veterans, and chronic-care patients, as naturally extracting CBD invariably leaves trace amounts of THC that easily exceed the 0.4mg total container limit. States lacking comprehensive recreational marijuana frameworks, including Texas, Idaho, Kansas, Wyoming, Georgia, and Tennessee, will bear the absolute brunt of this federal disruption, resulting in a near-total wipeout of the retail cannabinoid sector by the end of 2026.

Section 4: Actionable Next Steps and Best Practices

The convergence of aggressive state enforcement, punitive judicial rulings, expanding medical frameworks, and looming federal bans has engineered a highly specific, state-sanctioned cannabis monopoly in Texas as of June 2026. Navigating this highly volatile regulatory environment requires extreme agility and a rigorous commitment to legal compliance. Operators across the entire cannabinoid supply chain must immediately execute the following strategic best practices to survive:

  1. Immediate Liquidation and Purge of Inhalable Inventory: Retail operators must unconditionally cease the sale of all hemp flower, pre-rolls, and vaporization devices immediately. Retaining this inventory on shelves or in backrooms invites catastrophic enforcement actions from the TABC and DSHS. Violations will likely result not only in the confiscation of products but in the revocation of core business licenses and severe financial penalties.
  2. Rigorous Auditing for the 0.3% Total THC Threshold: Manufacturers and extractors must transition all testing protocols immediately to calculate Total THC (THCA + Delta-9). Cultivators must ensure that third-party lab testing reflects this combined metric. Any product exceeding 0.3% Total THC under the new March 2026 guidelines must be isolated, destroyed, or chemically retrofitted to comply with state law to avoid criminal trafficking charges.
  3. Proactive Preparation for the November 2026 Federal Cap: Cultivators and formulators must begin reformulating all edible and sublingual product lines immediately to ensure that no single container exceeds the incoming federal 0.4mg total THC limit. This pivot will require heavy capital investment in precision chromatography to isolate and remove trace THC from broad-spectrum CBD products before the November deadline.
  4. Strategic Pivot to TCUP Ancillary Services: With the unregulated retail hemp market collapsing, capital, real estate, and logistical expertise should be aggressively redirected toward servicing the rapidly expanding TCUP sector. Massive opportunities exist in providing state-compliant security, specialized compliance software, agricultural consulting for the fifteen licensed vertical operators, and building patient acquisition and telemedicine infrastructure for the influx of chronic pain patients.
  5. Implementation of Strict Age-Gating Enforcement: Surviving retailers selling compliant, non-inhalable hemp products must implement rigorous, technology-driven age-verification systems. Store operators must ensure absolutely no hemp-derived products, regardless of their lack of psychoactivity, are sold to individuals under the age of 21, as mandated by the late 2025 regulatory updates. Compliance officers should be designated to audit ID-checking procedures weekly.

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