Tag: texas

Texas Governor Signs Bill To Create Ibogaine Research Consortium, Aiming To Develop FDA-Approved Psychedelic Drug

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has signed into law a bill to create a state-backed research consortium to conduct clinical trials on ibogaine as a possible treatment for substance use disorders and other mental health conditions. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop the psychedelic into a prescription drug with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, with the state retaining a portion of the profit.

“Texas is now leading the way in the United States for the evaluation of ibogaine as a potential medication that can help improve the lives of so many Americans,” the governor said at a signing event on Wednesday. He called the psychedelic “a therapy that has shown great promise in treating” conditions such as depression, PTSD and opioid use disorder.

“I’m about to sign a law that will lead to an FDA-approved drug development clinical trial that will seek approval of ibogaine as a medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder and other behavioral health conditions, especially those suffered by our veterans,” he added. “Texas will invest $50 million to support this research, and these funds can be matched by grants and private investments.”

Under the new law, approved by the state legislature earlier this month, Texas will retain a commercial interest in “all intellectual property that may be generated over the course of the drug development clinical trials,” the legislation says, with an aim of making Texas a hub for “ibogaine-related biomedical research, development, treatment, manufacturing, and distribution.”

A quarter of revenue taken in by the state from any resulting intellectual property would fund veterans programs.

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FBI: Hundreds of Alleged Child Predators Arrested in Texas

A monthlong investigation in Texas snared 244 alleged online child-sex predators, the FBI and other agencies announced at a June 10 news conference in Dallas.

“We’re taking them off the street and not stopping,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a social media post.

The FBI Dallas office’s special agent in charge, R. Joseph Rothrock, told reporters that a common goal united more than 70 federal, state, and local agencies: “to rescue children from abuse and exploitation.”

This marks the second month in a row that the FBI has announced large-scale arrests of alleged online predators. Such cases are considered high priority for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, Patel said last month, as he announced that 205 suspects were arrested in a nationwide sweep called Operation Restore Justice.

The Texas-based investigation, dubbed Operation Soteria Shield, “rescued 109 children” and gathered “terabytes of illicit data,” the FBI said, adding that electronic devices are being further analyzed. The new evidence could lead to additional arrests or identifying victims.

Officials did not disclose details of the charges. However, at the news conference, they displayed names and photographs of the defendants. Silhouettes served as placeholders for 22 suspects for whom photographs were unavailable; some were juveniles and at least one remained unnamed pending arrest.

The effort demonstrates the agency’s commitment “to relentlessly pursue those who prey on children and to ensure that survivors are no longer silenced or hiding in the shadows,” FBI Dallas said.

It welcomed remarks from Texas police chiefs whose departments participated in the operation.

Dallas Police Chief Daniel C. Comeaux said the operation, which began in April, marshaled “a massive team effort.” His department serves as the lead agency for the North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Wylie Police Chief Anthony Henderson said: “The trauma inflicted by these crimes runs deep, affecting not only the victims, but also their families and entire communities.”

“With every arrest made and every child protected, the operation moves us closer to a safer community,” Henderson said.

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250,000 Texans Voted to Decriminalize Marijuana, So Why Are Politicians Trying To Override Them?

As the executive director of Ground Game Texas, I lead a team organizing working-class Texans to pass movement-driven local policies at the ballot box. In a state where our elected officials are openly hostile to justice, and voter suppression is rampant, we take the fight directly to the people. And the people are showing up.

Through our local campaigns, we’ve gathered hundreds of thousands of petition signatures and earned a quarter of a million votes to decriminalize marijuana across Texas—from Austin to Killeen, Lockhart to Dallas. In a state with low voter turnout, marijuana decriminalization has earned a supermajority of the vote in every city, and over-performed compared to the rest of the ballot. But instead of respecting the will of the voters, politicians in this state are doing everything they can to overturn these democratically elected policies.

We are fighting locally, fighting statewide, and fighting crony courts. Last year in Lockhart, the city attorney tried to split our single policy into 13 separate ballot items to bury it in bureaucracy. We stopped them. A state appeals court just upheld a lawsuit designed to stop our cities from implementing our marijuana decriminalization. And at the legislature, five separate bills were introduced this session to gut local control and block citizens from changing the law through ballot initiatives.

This is about more than plants with healing properties. It’s about power. It’s about democracy. And it’s all connected.

The war on drugs isn’t a failed policy—it’s a successful tool of oppression. A tool used to criminalize poverty. A tool used to lock Black and Brown Texans into cycles of incarceration. A tool used to destabilize families, punish veterans and disabled people and make survival a crime.

And when we rise up to change those laws, the people in power rewrite the rules to keep control. That’s not new. It’s a familiar playbook.

From Jim Crow poll taxes to modern-day gerrymandering and felony disenfranchisement, this country has always created new systems to block the people most impacted by oppression from changing it. What’s happening in Texas right now is just the latest chapter.

Let’s be clear: The issue isn’t that Texans don’t care. The issue is that the system was designed to keep most Texans out.

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Texas Yanks Major Perk From Illegal Aliens – After Pioneering It 24 Years Ago

Twenty-four years after being the first in the nation to roll it out, a major perk for illegal aliens in Texas has vanished after the Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit to stop it and the Lone Star State’s attorney general quickly agreed with the White House stance. Specifically, illegals will no longer be charged the in-state rate for college tuition.  

The end came quite suddenly. Within hours of the US Department of Justice filing a complaint in the Northern District of Texas, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion asking Judge Reed O’Connor to rule in favor of the DOJ and declare in-state tuition for illegals unconstitutional. On the same day, O’Connor issued an order declaring that discounts favoring illegal aliens over non-Texan American citizens — in contradiction of federal law — violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, and permanently blocking Texas from giving such discounts.

Paxton, who’s mounting a 2026 challenge of incumbent Republican John Cornyn to represent Texas in the United States Senate, raced to take credit for the outcome: 

“Today, I entered a joint motion along with the Trump Administration opposing a law that unconstitutionally and unlawfully gave benefits to illegal aliens that were not available to American citizens. Ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas.” 

In 2001, Texas became the first state to offer in-state tuition to illegals. Back then, Democrats had a slim majority in the state House, but the “Texas Dream Act” had bipartisan support, with only four of 181 legislators voting against it. Republicans bought into the idea that better-educated illegals would bolster the state’s labor force and its economy, and then-Governor Rick Perry gave full support — a stance he had to defend at a Republican debate during his failed 2012 presidential campaign. While this clip stops short, the audience answered with a mix of vigorous applause and hearty boos.

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33 Potential Noncitizens Referred For Investigation After Voting In Texas’ 2024 Elections

Nearly three dozen “potential noncitizens” have been referred for investigation after casting ballots in Texas’ 2024 elections, the state’s elections chief announced Thursday.

According to a press release from the office of Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, the 33 individuals whose citizenship remains in question are recorded as having voted in the Lone Star State’s 2024 November general election. Their names have since been given to the state attorney general’s office for further investigation.

The discovery, according to the release, was made after Texas was given access to the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database. As described by the federal agency, SAVE is “an online service for registered federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local government agencies to verify immigration status and naturalized/acquired U.S. citizenship of applicants seeking benefits or licenses.”

The system was made available to states after President Trump issued an elections-related executive order in March, which, in part, directed the DHS to “share database information with States upon request so they can fulfill” their duties of “maintain[ing] an accurate and current Statewide list of every legally registered voter in the State.”

“Gaining access to this database has been a game-changer. Not only have we been able to identify individuals who should not have voted in the last election, we have also been able to confirm naturalization of dozens more,” Nelson said in a statement.

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Doritos and Mountain Dew could carry a new ‘not recommended for human consumption’ warning under landmark Texas bill

A Texas bill on the brink of becoming law would crack down on major food manufacturers, requiring them to label products with warnings about ingredients “not recommended for human consumption,” under the standards of countries other than the U.S.

Senate Bill 25 would require U.S. food manufacturers to, beginning in 2027, clearly mark products sold in Texas with warning labels that the foods contain certain ingredients like bleached flour and synthetic food dyes that other countries have prohibited or required warnings for. The legislation would impact major food manufacturers like General Mills, whose brands Pillsbury Toaster Strudel contain bleached flour, as well as PepsiCo, the conglomerate behind Doritos and Mountain Dew, which contain dyes.

The bill also outlines requirements for physical education and nutrition education in schools. The legislation reached the desk of Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday.

Supported by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the bill’s enactment would notch a victory for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. The HHS secretary, as part of his MAHA efforts, has advocated for the banning of dyes, additives, and seed oils, arguing the ingredients increase the risk of cancer, hyperactivity in children, inflammatory bowel diseases, and allergic reactions.

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Texas Hemp Advocates Deliver 100,000+ Petitions To Governor’s Office, Urging Him To Veto THC Ban Bill

Texas hemp advocates and stakeholders are rallying in opposition to a bill the legislature passed to outlaw all consumable hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing any detectable THC—delivering more than 100,000 petition signatures asking Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to veto the measure.

“Senate Bill 3 was designed to destroy a vibrant and legitimate industry,” Cynthia Cabrera, president of Texas Hemp Business Council, which represents the state’s roughly $8 billion hemp industry, said in a press release. “The bill now awaits review by Governor Abbott. We respectfully urge him to consider the facts, listen to our appeal and make the logical decision to veto SB 3.”

At a press conference on Monday, Cabrera said she wanted to “address the misinformation, misdirection and maligning of this industry” by the bill sponsor, Sen. Charles Perry (D), and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who serves as presiding officer of the Senate and strongly advocated for the legislation.

“SB 3 violates the very principles Texas prides itself on: small government, individual freedom and free enterprise,” she said. “Governor Abbott, we ask that you keep your promise to small businesses, to women entrepreneurs and to every Texan who values freedom.”

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Outrage in Houston: Former DA Exposes Cover-Up and Negligence in the Brutal Murder of Jocelyn Nungaray.

Former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has issued a stark warning about the handling of the murder case of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was brutally killed in Houston.

Ogg revealed that one of the alleged killers, Franklin Peña Ramos, had been involved in a prior sexual assault in Costa Rica—a crime that was neither prosecuted nor properly recorded—allowing him to enter the United States without issue.

The revelation has sparked public outrage, especially from those who argue that the current immigration policies make it easier for dangerous individuals to enter the country.

The community is demanding answers, while the new District Attorney, Sean Teare, faces criticism for allegedly adopting a “soft-on-crime” stance that could threaten the pursuit of full justice for Jocelyn.

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Texas Lawmakers Pass Medical Marijuana Program Expansion Bill, Sending It To The Governor’s Desk

Texas lawmakers have passed a bill to significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana program, sending it to the governor.

Just days after the legislation from Rep. Ken King (R) advanced through the Senate, with amendments that watered down the original House proposal, bicameral negotiators worked out a compromise over the weekend and then each chamber gave final approval on Sunday.

The measure now heads to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to potentially be signed into law.

The final version of the bill—which cleared the House on a 138-1 vote and the Senate by a vote of 31-0—would 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 would additionally allow patients to access a wider range of cannabis product types—including patches, lotions, suppositories, approved inhalers, nebulizers and vaping devices.

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

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

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Fifth Circuit Affirms Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Cloud Storage in Dropbox Case

A federal appeals court has ruled that state officials violated the Fourth Amendment when they orchestrated the covert retrieval of documents from a nonprofit’s Dropbox folder, an outcome that significantly strengthens legal protections for digital privacy in cloud-based environments.

In a 25-page decision issued May 28, 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that The Heidi Group, a Texas-based pro-life healthcare organization, had a reasonable expectation of privacy in its digital files and that a state investigator’s role in acquiring them without judicial authorization amounted to an unconstitutional search.

We obtained a copy of the decision for you here.

Writing for the court, Judge Andrew S. Oldham emphasized that the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches extends to “the content of stored electronic communications,” including files housed in commercial cloud platforms.

“Heidi has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its documents and files uploaded to Dropbox,” the opinion stated. “Heidi’s records are analogous to letters, phone calls, emails, and social media messages: Each contains information content transmitted through or stored with an intermediary that is not intended to ‘be broadcast to the world.’”

The controversy arose after Phyllis Morgan, a former employee of The Heidi Group, exploited her lingering access to the organization’s Dropbox folder for nearly a year after being terminated.

Rather than reporting the breach or seeking lawful channels to obtain the data, a senior investigator from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Gaylon Dacus, allegedly encouraged the ex-employee to continue accessing the nonprofit’s confidential materials and forward them to the state.

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