Texas Governor Signs Bill To Significantly Expand State’s Medical Marijuana Program

The governor of Texas has approved a bill to to significantly expand the
state’s medical marijuana program.

As advocates and stakeholders await the fate of a separate measure banning
consumable hemp products, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Saturday signed into law
the medical cannabis legislation from Rep. Ken King (R).

The new law will expand the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying
conditions to include chronic pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), Crohn’s
disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, while also allowing
end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care to use marijuana.

The measure additionally allows patients to access a wider range of
cannabis product types—including patches, lotions, suppositories, approved
inhalers, nebulizers and vaping devices.

And, it mandates that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) increase the
number of medical cannabis business licenses from the current three to 15.
It further allows dispensaries to open satellite locations.

Before moving to the governor’s desk, House lawmakers had rejected Senate
changes to the bill, which largely scaled back the scope of the proposed
expansion to the medical marijuana program.

The version passed by the House last month would have extended the
currently limited list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions to include
chronic pain, glaucoma, TBI, spinal neuropathy, Crohn’s disease or other
inflammatory bowel disease and degenerative disc disease.

It would also have allowed military veterans to become registered cannabis
patients for any medical condition—and authorized the Texas Department of
State Health Services (DSHS) to further expand the list of qualifying
conditions.

But those provisions were removed in the Senate State Affairs Committee
before the bill reached the floor of that chamber.

Rep. Tom Oliverson (R) suggested there was an agreement around adding
chronic pain with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), the presiding officer of the
Senate. While Patrick disputed the characterization of their conversation, the
lieutenant governor and lawmakers ultimately reached a deal to reinsert the
condition into the bill with an amendment that passed on the Senate floor,
among others.

Whereas the Senate version had said that chronic pain patients could only
access medical cannabis if they had first tried opioids for 90 days, the
final version crafted by the conference committee does not contain such a
stipulation. And, under the agreement, TBI is being added back in as a new
qualifying condition as well.

Lawmakers then passed a resolution adding Crohn’s disease and other
inflammatory bowel diseases back into the bill as well, which Sen. Charles
Perry (R) said on the floor were “inadvertently left out by the drafter
late last night.”

Under the final bill, patient registrations will be good for one year, with
up to four refills of a 90-day supply. Medical cannabis packages,
containers and devices will be allowed to include up to 1 gram of total
THC, with a 10 mg/dose limit.

Lawmakers had also adopted resolutions to clarify that a physician “may
prescribe more than one package of low-THC cannabis to a patient in a
90-day period.”

While DSHS cannot on its own add new qualifying conditions as would have
been the case under the original House bill, the final version allows
physicians to petition the department to report to the legislature that
cannabis appears to be beneficial for a condition, and then lawmakers could
potentially act to expand the program.

The law also includes protections mandating that patient information is
confidential and may only be accessed by the department, registered
physicians and dispensaries.

Regulators are mandated to promulgate rules for the expanded program by
October 1.

The bill builds upon Texas’s current, limited medical marijuana program,
which allows patients with one of eight qualifying condition access certain
non-smokable cannabis products containing no more than 0.5 percent THC by
dry weight.

This comes in the background of a highly contentious debate over another
piece of legislation that was sent to Abbott last month to ban consumable
hemp products containing any amount of THC, even though federal law permits
hemp products containing up to 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.


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A recent poll found that four in five Texas voters want to see marijuana
legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around
cannabis relaxed.

Meanwhile in Texas, a House committee approved a Senate-passed bill last
month that would prohibit cities from putting any citizen initiative on
local ballots that would decriminalize marijuana or other controlled
substances—as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from
the state attorney general.

Under the proposal, state law would be amended to say that local entities
“may not place an item on a ballot, including a municipal charter or
charter amendment, that would provide that the local entity will not fully
enforce” state drug laws.

While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis
decriminalization laws, an appellate court comprised of three conservative
justices appointed by the governor has recently pushed back against two of
those rulings, siding with the state in its legal challenge to the
marijuana policy in Austin and San Marcos.

Despite the ongoing litigation and advancement of the House and Senate
bills, Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city, Kyle,
where they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana
reform at the ballot this coming November.

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*Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.*

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