Texas officials have published a set of proposed rules to implement a law significantly expanding the state’s medical marijuana program.
The Department of Public Safety (DPS) rules—which were posted in the Texas Register on Friday—would increase the number of licensed dispensaries, establish security requirements for “satellite” locations and authorize the revocation of licenses for certain violations.
There’s now a 30-day public comment period open for the public to provide input on the rules before they’re finalized, which must be done by October 1 under legislation that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed in June.
DPS 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 proposed rules up for public comment also lay out security parameters for dispensaries with satellite locations approved by the department, including mandates to “designate an enclosed locked area within the satellite location where low-THC cannabis product is stored that provides reasonably adequate security against theft and diversion” as well as “designate an individual, or a limited number of individuals, with responsibility for and with the authority to enter or control entry” into those secure areas.
Additionally, they specify policies allowing regulators to revoke licenses for violations such as not having cannabis products available within 24 months of a license issuance, failing to “promptly and accurately fill prescriptions” and not “continuously” producing cannabis “in a manner consistent with the level of demand for the licensee’s product.”
In addition to increasing the number of dispensaries in the state, 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 is automatically adopted via the enacted statute, so it will take effect on September 1 without further rulemaking.
Meanwhile, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has separately taken steps to implement medical cannabis expansion with proposed rules to let physicians recommend new qualifying conditions for cannabis and create standards for allowable inhalation devices. Those rules haven’t been posted in the Texas Register yet.
This comes in the background of a heated debate over separate legislation that would ban hemp products containing any THC—a proposal that the industry says would effectively wipe out the market.
On Tuesday—shortly after the governor signed a proclamation to convene a second special legislative session—the Senate passed a hemp ban measure again, sending it back to the House. The last version didn’t advance in the chamber, due in large part to the fact that many Democrats left the state to prevent a quorum that would be necessary to pass a controversial redistricting measure.
Several other hemp and marijuana bills have been filed for the second special session, including one from Rep. Charlie Geren (R) would follow the governor’s directive to make it so consumable hemp products could only be purchased by adults 21 and older.
Ahead of the end of the first special session, the House Public Health Committee took up the prior bill to ban consumable hemp products containing THC, without taking action on it.
Abbott vetoed an earlier version of the controversial proposal that passed during this year’s regular session, and he more recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.
Some, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and Senate bill sponsor Perry, have insisted that an outright ban is a public safety imperative to rid the state of intoxicating products that have proliferated since the crop was federally legalized in 2018. Others say the legislature should instead enact regulations for the market to prevent youth access while still allowing adults 21 and older to access the products and preserving the massive industry.
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During the first special session, 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.
Image element courtesy of AnonMoos.
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