Texas Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill Will Be Amended After Passing House, Key Senator Says

A bill that would significantly expand Texas’s medical marijuana program had its first Senate committee hearing on Monday, where a key senator called the House-passed measure a “work in process” and said future changes are in store.

“It’s currently in the works, and we’re still having conversations on what the final product is,” Sen. Charles Perry (R) said of the legislation, HB 46. “There will be a committee substitute, but it is not back from [Legislative] Council yet.”

Perry, who is the sponsor of a companion bill in the Senate, said issues still being hammered out include the number of new dispensary licenses that would be added, which qualifying conditions would be included and what limits to set on product amounts.

“As I say, this is a work in process,” he told senators at Monday’s hearing, “and [I] just wanted to have it heard so that when that [substitute version] comes out, we can address it in proper time.”

Members of the Senate Committee on State Affairs did not take action on the bill on Monday but spent about 15 minutes discussing the proposal.

One lawmaker, Sen. Brian Birdwell (R), said that given the forthcoming substitute, he intends to work with Perry and “see what he’s going to change.”

Birdwell told Perry he had “serious concerns” with the House-passed HB 46 compared to the Senate companion, SB 1505, but he added that “instead of wasting the committee’s time asking questions, now I think I’d rather just consult separately with Sen. Perry.”

Senators then took public testimony on the measure and held it for further action.

“We got a week or so to hammer this down,” Perry said, noting that a separate bill on intoxicating hemp products, SB 3, is scheduled to be taken up in the House on Tuesday. “So we’ll see where that lands and see where this all fits together. It’s kind of a package deal.”

As passed by the House of Representatives last week, the medical cannabis bill would build on the Texas Compassionate Use Program, known as TCUP, to ease access to more patients across the state. It would add additional dispensaries, expand the state’s list of qualifying conditions, allow a wider range of available products and allow marijuana for end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care.

Specifically, it would allow patients to access cannabis patches, lotions, suppositories, approved inhalers, nebulizers and and vaping devices. The currently limited list of qualifying conditions would be extended to include chronic pain, glaucoma, traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal neuropathy, Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel disease, degenerative disc disease and any terminal illness for patients receiving hospice or palliative care.

Military veterans would be able to become registered cannabis patients for any medical condition, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) would also be authorized for further expand the list.

The bill would additionally mandate that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) issue 11 dispensary licenses within the 11 designated public health regions across the state. It would further allow dispensaries to open satellite locations if approved.

Notably, an amendment adopted on the House floor last week would grandfather existing medical cannabis dispensary satellite locations, ensure a competitive business licensing application process, create a timeline for when new licenses must be issued, amend background check rules, allow physicians to determine dosage and remove a 1.2 gram limit for possession by patients and instead let doctors recommend an amount they see fit.

A second amendment approved by House members would require doctors who issue medical cannabis recommendations to report them to the state’s prescription drug monitoring program.

If ultimately enacted, the bill would significantly build 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 by dry weight.

Of the several public commenters at Monday’s Senate committee hearing, one said she opposed the bill in its current form because of its accommodation for military veterans. “It doesn’t make sense to encourage almost drugging of our warriors,” she said, “when we want them to thrive.”

The witness added that she believes patients could get the same relief from non-intoxicating cannabinoids, such as CBD and CBG, without needing to use THC.

Another speaker, who has used marijuana therapeutically for decades, she said, said she best manages her condition by using cannabis flower—which she has to buy on the illicit market—rather than with more processed products.

“Thousand of Texans can qualify for TCUP, but they’re intimidated by the process, and getting recommendations is also daunting,” she said. “Adding more conditions to qualify would definitely be an improvement and help many patients who are needlessly suffering without access.”

Susan Hayes, a public representative for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), told the committee: “We need to truly expand this program.”

“I know this body is very concerned about the intoxicating hemp market,” she said. “If you want to take the wind out of the sails of that market, you need to give the people who are using these products for medical reasons a place to go and a place where they can have safe and reliable and regulated products.”

“HB 46,” Hayes continued, “comes awfully close to doing that.”

Advocates said after Monday’s hearing that they were glad to see the bill move forward but hoped that forthcoming amendments wouldn’t significantly water down the expansion.

Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center said in an email to Marijuana Moment, for example, that it was unfortunate the substitute bill wasn’t ready for the hearing, which would have enabled more robust debate.

“It was refreshing to hear Sen. Perry confirm that cannabis is medicine, but we’re concerned he may strip HB 46 of good provisions that expand the program for broader patient access,” she said. “Patients have suffered long enough without full access to medical cannabis medicine. It’s unconscionable that the Senate may let another legislative session pass without allowing access to cannabis for those with chronic, debilitating pain.”

(Disclosure: Fazio supports Marijuana Moment’s work with a monthly pledge on Patreon.)

Separately last week, House lawmakers also passed a measure to support research on the therapeutic potential of ibogaine with the aim of encouraging federal approval of the psychedelic.

That bill, SB 2308, would create a grant program through the state Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to provide funding for clinical trials exploring ibogaine as a potential treatment option for people suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) and other serious mental health condition

“To the veterans who are out there struggling, for the mothers—millions of mothers across the state of Texas who have kids who are addicted to opioids—Texas is coming, Rep. Cody Harris (R), sponsor of a House companion version of the measure, said on the floor.

While the measure has previously passed the Senate, the House slightly amended it to clarify that the definition of ibogaine that would be studied also includes ibogaine-based therapeutics and analogues. As such, it needs to go back to the other body before potentially being sent to the governor and enacted into law.

An analysis of the legislation says OUD “continues to be one of the most insidious threats to public health of our time, devastating individuals, families, and communities across Texas and our nation,” and “current treatment options are often unsuccessful in treating OUD and lives are lost as a result.”

Ibogaine has “shown incredible promise in early research as an effective and fast-acting treatment for OUD and other related or co-occurring conditions,” it says. “However, ibogaine must undergo costly FDA-approved clinical trials before it can become a viable treatment option.”

Earlier this month, meanwhile, the Texas House also gave final passage to a pair of bills designed to ensure speedy access to psychedelic-assisted therapy in the event of federal approval from FDA.

One bill—HB 4014, from Rep. John Bucy III (D)—would establish a state-backed study into the use of psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine to treat conditions such as PTSD and depression. The other—HB 4813, from Rep. Tom Oliverson (R)—aims to minimize delay at the state level if and when FDA approves a new drug, such as psilocybin or MDMA.

With respect to the cannabis legislation, its approval comes months after DPS released a report advising that the state’s currently limited medical marijuana system “does not provide for statewide access for patients” and recommending that the number of licensed dispensaries be significantly expanded to meet demand.

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 earlier this 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 Gov. Greg Abbott (R) 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.

Abbott has lashed out against the municipal cannabis reform efforts.

“Local communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don’t have the authority to override state law,” the governor said last May “If they want to see a different law passed, they need to work with their legislators. Let’s legislate to work to make sure that the state, as a state, will pass some of the law.”

He said it would lead to “chaos” and create an “unworkable system” for voters in individual cities to be “picking and choosing” the laws they want abide by under state statute.

Abbott has previously said that he doesn’t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession—although he mistakenly suggested at the time that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.

In 2023, Ground Game released a report that looked at the impacts of the marijuana reform laws. It found that the measures will keep hundreds of people out of jail, even as they have led to blowback from law enforcement in some cities. The initiatives have also driven voter turnout by being on the ballot, the report said.

Another cannabis decriminalization measure that went before voters in San Antonio that year was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.

Meanwhile, in March the Texas Senate approved a bill that cannabis advocates and stakeholders said would effectively eradicate the state’s hemp industry, prohibiting consumable products derived from the plant that contain any amount of THC.

That, as well as another measure from Rep. Joe Moody (D) to decriminalize cannabis statewide, is one of the latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related proposals filed so far in Texas for the current legislative session. Various other measures would legalize adult-use marijuana, remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and adjust the state’s existing medical marijuana laws, among others.

Moody sponsored a similar marijuana decriminalization bill last legislative session, in 2023. That measure, HB 218, passed the House on an 87–59 vote but later died in a Senate committee.

The House had already passed earlier cannabis decriminalization proposals during the two previous legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But the efforts have consistently stalled in the Senate amid opposition from the lieutenant governor.

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