Texas officials are taking another step toward implementing a law to significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana program—posting a draft of proposed rules to let physicians recommend new qualifying conditions for cannabis and create standards for allowable inhalation devices.

The state Health and Human Services Commission is set to formally file the proposed rules next week, and they’ll subsequently be published in the Texas Register, opening up a 31-day public comment period.

This comes about a week after the the Department of Public Safety (DPS) previewed a separate set of rules to increase the number of licensed dispensaries under recently passed legislation.

To comply with the medical marijuana expansion bill that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law in June, DPS will be formally proposing a future licensing application process, security standards for satellite locations and license revocation parameters.

Meanwhile, the new memo published ahead of a Health and Human Services Commission Executive Council meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 21 outlines additional steps that are being taken.

Specifically, the department is proposing rules that “explain how physicians can request to add medical conditions to the list, set standards for pulmonary inhalation medical devices prescribed under the program, and establish a timeline for reviewing and approving such devices.”

Under the rule, doctors would submit recommended medical cannabis qualifying conditions to the Department of State Health Services (DSHS), which would then forward the recommendation to DPS. That department would be tasked with submitting the request to lawmakers for consideration in the next legislative session.

The rules must be finalized by October 1, 2025.

In addition to increasing the number of dispensaries, revising physician recommendation policies and setting standards for vaping devises, the law signed by the governor also expands 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.

That policy change will be automatically adopted via the enacted statute when the law takes effect on September 1, so it will not require further rulemaking.

DPS, for its part, will ultimately be issuing 12 new licenses for dispensaries across the state. Currently there are only three. The additional licensees will go through a competitive process, with officials prioritizing Texas’s public health regions to optimize access.

The first round of licenses will be awarded to nine of 139 applicants who submitted their forms during an earlier application window in 2023. DPS will select those nine licensees on December 1. The 2023 applicants that didn’t receive a license, as well as any new prospective licensees, will have another shot at getting their license during a second round where awardees will be announced on April 1, 2026.

The 2023 group can still revise their applications up until September 15. New would-be dispensary owners have until that date to submit their applications as well.

The Department of Public Safety has separately previewed future rulemaking to comply with the medical marijuana expansion law.

That includes proposals to establish “security requirements for dispensing organization satellite locations if approved by the department,” creating rules to revoke licenses for dispensaries that fail to dispense cannabis within two years of a license issuance and setting a timeline for “reviewing and taking action on dispensing organization licenses.”

Meanwhile, Texas lawmakers took up a bill on Wednesday that would ban consumable hemp products containing THC. But despite the committee hearing being held, the legislation isn’t expected to advance during an ongoing special session as Democratic state lawmakers continue to deny the House a quorum to pass any measures amid a conflict over proposed redistricting.

The House bill, a companion to an identical Senate-passed hemp proposal, was discussed during a lengthy meeting of the House Public Health Committee, which is able to conduct business despite the broader lack of quorum in the chamber. While the governor has threatened prosecution or dismissal of absent Democratic members, the walkout hasn’t shown signs of relenting.

Time is running short in the special session the governor convened to address a series of outstanding issues, including legislation related to hemp cannabinoid products. Abbott vetoed an earlier version of the controversial ban that passed during this year’s regular session, and he recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.

The governor and legislative leaders have since affirmed that, if Democrats members don’t show up and establish a quorum by Friday, they will end the current special session and start a new one. Under the state constitution, special sessions cannot last longer than 30 days, but there is no limit to how many can be called.

At a press conference last month, a group of Democratic state senators introduced two new cannabis-related bills, including one that would regulate the hemp market, allowing adults 21 and older to purchase hemp products containing no more than 5 mg of THC per serving.

A second new bill would effectively legalize cannabis for adult use by removing criminal penalties for possession of up to two ounces of marijuana on a person and up to 10 ounces in a single household if it’s secure and out of sight. Cultivation of up to six plants, only half of which could be mature, would also be legalized.

The governor, who during the state’s regular legislative session this year vetoed a similar hemp product ban, SB 3, has also backed the idea of limiting THC potency and prohibiting sales to minors rather than outlawing products entirely.

Under the current Senate-passed proposal, consumable hemp products with any amount of THC—or any other cannabinoid besides CBD and CBG—would be illegal. Even mere possession would be punishable as a Class B misdemeanor, carrying up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Some advocates are hopeful that either SB 5 or its House counterpart could see revisions as they make their way through the legislative process—either to affirmatively regulate the hemp market or to at least ease some of the criminal penalties on individuals found in possession of the affected products.

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Separately, Rep. Nicole Collier (D) introduced a one-page bill, HB 42, designed to protect consumers in the state from criminal charges if what they believed was a legal hemp product turned out to contain excessive amounts of THC, making it illegal marijuana. It would prevent the criminalization of someone found in possession of a product that’s labeled as hemp but is determined to contain “a controlled substance or marihuana.”

In order for the person to obtain the legal protection, the product would need to have been purchased “from a retailer the person reasonably believed was authorized to sell a consumable hemp product.”

Another bill—HB 195, introduced by Rep. Jessica González (D)—would legalize marijuana for people 21 and older, allowing possession of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis, with no more than 15 grams of that amount being in concentrated form.

Yet another proposal would order state officials to conduct a study on testing for THC intoxication.

As for what Texans themselves want to see from their representatives, proponents of reining in the largely unregulated intoxicating hemp industry in Texas shared new polling data indicating that majorities of respondents from both major political parties support outlawing synthetic cannabinoids, such as delta-8 THC.

The survey also found that respondents would rather obtain therapeutic cannabis products through a state-licensed medical marijuana program than from a “smoke shop selling unregulated and untested hemp.”

Ahead of the governor’s veto in June of SB 3—the earlier hemp product ban—advocates and stakeholders had delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures asking Abbott to reject the measure. Critics argued that the industry—which employs an estimated 53,000 people—would be decimated if the measure became law.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.