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.
