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.
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