Top 10 Cities Interested in CBD Oil in Texas

With the recent legislation changes surrounding CBD oil in Texas, we couldn’t help but wonder what effect this may have on the residents of the state. We noticed a resoundingly positive response to the recent changes that made CBD oils legal in Texas, and thought it’d be interesting to see the kind of impact that this may have on search interest in CBD oil and related topics. Would they be more curious about this ever-growing wellness trend? Or would they be unaffected by the changes?

To answer these questions, we tracked Google Trends data from the past year to give us some insight into the interest and intent of Texas residents searching for CBD. By using unbiased Google search data, it allowed us to determine where in Texas people were searching for information pertaining to the legal status of CBD, its benefits, and where they can purchase it for themselves. Google attributes a number to each region for their search interest on a given term (on a scale of 1 to 100), and we totaled together the results from various CBD-related topics to give us the top 10 Texas cities interested in CBD oil relative to search interest.

In our research, the ten Texas cities most interested in CBD were:

1. Dallas
2. Fort Worth
3. San Antonio
4. Austin
5. Corpus Christi
6. Tyler
7. Longview
8. Houston
9. El Paso
10. Waco

The Legalization of CBD Oil in Texas

In late 2018, hemp was federally legalized as an agricultural crop, and many people were excited about what this meant for hemp extracts like CBD. However, this change proved to offer little clarity when it came to the murky legal landscape of CBD, and consumers still have questions about its safety and legal status. This is especially true in the Lone Star State, where previous legislation did not differentiate between hemp and marijuana—which translated into CBD oil containing any amount of THC (even those below the legal limit of 0.3 percent) was considered to be a controlled substance and deemed illegal in Texas.

However, people were still selling and buying CBD products at their own risk, without knowledge of where CBD truly fell when it came to legal versus illegal cannabis extracts.

House Bill 1325 sought to fix this confusion, and it was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on June 10, 2019. The passage of this bill means a few different things, including the legalization of various CBD products with a THC content no greater than 0.3 percent. The bill also opens the door for farmers to begin growing hemp in the state of Texas, with inspections, sample testing, and proper licensing required for the approved state program.

How this Decision Affected Search Interest

While we were able to pinpoint the ten Texas regions most interested in CBD based on their Google search habits, we noticed that the state as a whole was affected by this historical legislative change. Across the past 12 months, Google trends data showed the highest interest among search topics like “what is CBD oil” and “is CBD legal” following the first passage of House Bill 1325 by the Texas House of Representatives on April 24, 2019.

Is CBD Legal: The results for this search were neck-neck when it came to determining the interest in an area, including the Dallas-Fort Worth region, Houston, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio with the highest search percentage.

Another peak time frame for CBD-related searches can be seen during the week that the Senate approved the bill on May 15, 2019. This includes another high search interest for “what is CBD oil,” as well as “CBD oil benefits,” since more people likely grew curious about its potential uses as House Bill 1325 approached the final stage of the law making process.

What is CBD Oil: The results for this search were neck-neck when it came to determining the interest in an area, including the Dallas-Fort Worth region, Houston, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio with the highest search percentage.

Other searches like “CBD oil near me” and “hemp” also saw an increase in interest in the short period leading up to the signing of the bill by Governor Abbott on June 10th, and in the days afterward.

In relation to hemp crops specifically, farmers may play a large role in the increased interest for this search topic, given that Texas is home to the largest number of farms and ranches in the nation, and hemp may prove to be a cash crop for its versatile fibers and use for CBD products.

CBD Oil Near Me: The five biggest city centers within the state—Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, and Fort Worth areas—had the highest search interest in this term.

Methodology

We determined the top 10 Texas cities interested in CBD oil by accumulating unbiased samples of Google’s search data, particularly for terms with high search volumes and a direct relation to CBD. This data is completely anonymous and categorized by topic and region, which allowed for the measure of interest over the last year, and how this has changed given the recent legalization of CBD and hemp in Texas.

This search data is also not based on the volume of search by population, but the proportion of CBD-related searches compared to all other searches at that time and location. Essentially, this means that higher populated areas do not generate a higher search interest simply based on the number of people in the area, but rather the percentage of searches given towards a specific topic out of all other searches.

This kind of data information can be immensely helpful when exploring the impact of a moment and how people react to it—in this case, how Texas residence responded to the legalization of CBD and hemp.

When it came to our city rankings, the key terms that affected our decision the most were search interests for “what is CBD oil,” “CBD oil near me,” and “is CBD legal.” In addition, other terms like “hemp” and “CBD oil benefits” were also researched, and the number attributed to each region for their search interest for every one of these topics (on a scale of 1 to 100) was tallied together to give us our final results.