Texas: Rules proposed to expand medical cannabis program

On September 1, HB 46 took effect, significantly expanding the Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP), Texas’ restrictive medical cannabis law. Some parts of the law, however, required administrative rulemaking to implement:

• The Department of Public Safety (DPS) has proposed rules to license more dispensing organizations and to allow satellite locations.   

• The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has proposed rules including to create processes for requesting approval of devices for non-smoked pulmonary inhalation.

We are also requested three revisions to rules for pulmonary inhalation devices, which add new hurdles that are not in the law:

• removing the apparent requirement, which is not HB 46, that physicians are required to prescribe a specific device for pulmonary inhalation.

• adding a reasonable and explicit deadline for approving medical devices for pulmonary inhalation. 

• allowing dispensary organizations, patients, and manufacturers of devices for pulmonary inhalation to request approval for devices. The proposed rules only allow prescribing physicians to propose approval of devices for pulmonary inhalation. 

Check out our comments to DSHS. If you’d like to weigh in on either set of rules, you can: 

• submit comments on the proposed DSHS rules to [email protected] with “Comments on Proposed Rule 25R037” in the subject line. While the deadline for comment is October 6, rules must be effective by October 1, so it may be prudent to submit by late September.

• send comments on the proposed DPS rules to [email protected] by Sunday, September 21.

Our allies at the Texas Cannabis Policy Center have additional information on the rules and licensing process and timeline here. 

Thanks for all of your advocacy this year to expand medical cannabis and defeat the ban on hemp-derived THC!