Among the first bills filed for the 2019 legislative session in Texas are two major attempts at marijuana policy reform in regards to medical access and decriminalization.<\/p>\n
The Senate\u2019s medical effort led by\u00a0SB 90<\/a>\u00a0sponsor Senator Jos\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez (D-San Antonio) would widely expand Texas\u2019s highly restrictive medical marijuana medical marijuana program to numerous debilitating conditions and clean up other issues. In the House, State Representative Joe Moody (D-El Paso) filed\u00a0AB 63<\/a>\u00a0to decriminalize the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cDoctors, not politicians, should determine what is best for Texas patients,\u201d Men\u00e9ndez said\u00a0following SB 90\u2019s filing<\/a>, \u201cStudies have proven that cannabis is a legitimate medicine that can help a variety of Texans including individuals suffering from opioid addiction, veterans coping with PTSD<\/a>, cancer patients, and people on the Autism spectrum. Texas should provide real relief for our suffering patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Moody shared his excitement with Cannabis Now in a statement via email.<\/p>\n \u201cCivil penalty legislation is the first thing I\u2019ve filed on the first day of filing for the 86th Session,\u201d Moody wrote. \u201cThere\u2019s been an incredible swell of bipartisan support since last session and the official Texas Republican and Democratic platforms both approve of this kind of reform now. I\u2019m optimistic that this will be the session we finally see smarter, fairer marijuana laws in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n With the Texas legislature convening once every two years and marijuana becoming a more bipartisan issue on a seemingly monthly basis, advocates feel these two bills are well positioned to capitalize on the previous enthusiasm around both issues.\u00a0Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy<\/a>\u00a0Director Heather Fazio spoke exclusively with Cannabis Now on her hope for both bills this time around and what goals the group is looking to accomplish.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have tremendous momentum in Texas for bringing about meaningful reform in the 2019 legislative session,\u201d Fazio told Cannabis Now.<\/p>\n Fazio pointed to the work advocates did over the past two years that has seen major political players in Texas take a stand on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Republican Party of Texas has officially endorsed basically what is the civil penalties bill,\u201d said Fazio. \u201cThey even asked for less of a fine than what\u2019s in the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n Governor Greg Abbot\u2019s\u00a0recent statement<\/a>\u00a0around his wiliness to consider decriminalization also proved a nice way to set the tone going into the legislative session.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the governor making a public statement on live television in September saying he\u2019s open to working with lawmakers on reducing penalties for possession, that he doesn\u2019t want to see our jails stockpiled with people who are there for small amounts of marijuana,\u201d said Fazio.<\/p>\n But the governor has\u00a0recently been less receptive<\/a>\u00a0about expanding the state\u2019s medical program.<\/p>\n The scale of what decrim could mean in Texas is massive. Fazio notes the state arrested over 64,000 people for the simple possession of marijuana in 2017. Of those, about 40,000 were convicted.<\/p>\n \u201c[Convictions] means they now have a lifelong criminal record that will affect their ability to go to college, their ability to be employed, opportunities for housing,\u201d Fazio said. \u201cTheir driver\u2019s license is automatically suspended. The civil penalties bill by Chairman Moody will go far in helping to eliminate the arrests, jail time, and even the criminal record associated with small amounts of marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n In light of how tough it is for patients at the moment in Texas, Fazio is hoping the medical bill SB 90 will not only expand access to a wider list of conditions that includes cancer, ALS, and PTSD but also fix a few other issues within the law.<\/p>\n \u201cTexas\u2019s law is unreasonably restrictive in that it only allows those with Intractable Epilepsy to access low THC cannabis,\u201d said Fazio.<\/p>\n Another one of the big flaws currently is the requirement for doctors to prescribe cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cBy having the language in the law that requires them to prescribe, we are not protecting doctors from federal interference,\u201d said Fazio. \u201cThere are now 32 states that allow or have passed legislation for medical marijuana and every single one of them requires doctors to recommend cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n The language is an important legal specification because you can\u2019t prescribe a Schedule I drug.<\/p>\n As the doctors should feel safe, so should the patients and creating independent lab testing in the state is an important step SB 90 looks to take. Under the current system companies test their own products, \u201cor the Department of Public Safety to test the product in an enforcement mechanism.\u201d said Fazio. As SB 90 does, advocates would like to see the state acquire an independent lab testing scene to allow patients to choose for themselves based on fair results.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0is cannabis legal where you live?<\/p>\n The post Two Major Marijuana Reform Bills Filed in Texas<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Among the first bills filed for the 2019 legislative session in Texas are two major attempts at marijuana policy reform in regards to medical access and decriminalization. The Senate\u2019s medical effort led by\u00a0SB 90\u00a0sponsor Senator Jos\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez (D-San Antonio) would widely expand Texas\u2019s highly restrictive medical marijuana medical marijuana programContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6467,50,94,4317,3601,4814,139,5497,81,6468,6469,726],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30555,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30554\/revisions\/30555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Two Major Marijuana Reform Bills Filed in Texas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"