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Around one in four U.S. adults dealing with chronic pain use cannabis to manage their condition, according to a new study.
House Bill 1805 moved forward on a 121-23 vote, clearing it for a final approval Wednesday before it goes to the Texas Senate.
Sponsored by State Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, the bill expands the state's current medical cannabis program to those who would otherwise have been prescribed opiates for pain. Additionally, it raises the cap for the amount of THC in prescribed cannabis to 10 milligrams per dosage unit, up from 1% by weight. THC is the compound in marijuana that leads to a high.
“We’ve been trying to cut back on opioid use for a number of years,” Klick, a nurse, told the Dallas Morning News. “Prescription opiates became a problem. We’ve done a number of measures over the last decade to try and reduce that, but this is another tool in the toolbox.”
Cannabis advocates and medical professionals have urged Texas lawmakers to expand the state's so-called Compassionate Use Program (CUP) to include people experiencing chronic pain. Research shows that medical marijuana is particularly effective in addressing that condition, they maintain.
Right now, CUP is only open to patients suffering from cancer, PTSD, autism, epilepsy and a limited number of other ailments, making it one of the country's most limited medical cannabis programs.
Advocates have also called on lawmakers to boost the program's THC cap, which they say is set arbitrarily low. Under the current limit, patients who need significant doses of the compound are forced to overpay to meet their required dosage, suppliers maintain.
HB 1805 also lays the groundwork for a process by which the Department of State Health Services could decide which other patient groups qualify for CUP. That could allow the program to expand more quickly than having to wait for the Texas Legislature to vote on new expansions of the law every two years.
Currently, there are just three state-approved suppliers for Texas medical marijuana patients. Industry officials argue that's kept prices artificially high. They said final approval of Klick's bill could bring more suppliers to the state, expanding availability and reducing prices.
"Texas is the biggest untapped market, so every [medical cannabis supplier] is going to be looking at this and doing the calculations to see whether the numbers make sense to apply," said John Harloe, general counsel of leading hemp and cannabis company Balanced Health Botanicals.
Harloe declined to say whether Balanced Health had applied to enter the Texas market. Earlier this year, the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees CUP, began accepting additional supplier applications.
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