The Texas Department of Public Safety is almost ready to roll out its long-awaited lab test to tell if cannabis is newly legal hemp or illegal marijuana. But DPS Director Steve McCraw notified Texas law enforcement agencies this month of a crucial caveat: The state labs won’t do testing in misdemeanor marijuana possession cases. That will likely […]
Texas
Austin, Texas police will stop arrests, tickets in most low-level marijuana cases after unanimous City Council vote
The Austin City Council approved a resolution Thursday that will largely end arrests and fines for low-level marijuana possession. This comes after Texas’ legalization of hemp last June threw marijuana prosecution into chaos since the plants look and smell identical. The resolution directs Austin police not to spend city resources on newly necessary lab tests to distinguish marijuana from […]
He spent a month in Texas jail accused of hauling 3,350 pounds of marijuana. But lab results say it was legal hemp.
In the ongoing chaos of hemp’s legalization that has sent marijuana prosecutions plummeting, Texas has encountered a 3,350-pound problem. Last month, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper arrested a driver who the agency claimed was hauling more than a ton of marijuana through the state near Amarillo. Aneudy Gonzalez was jailed for nearly a month on federal charges […]
Will Texans give up gun rights to get medical marijuana? Federal government says they have to
AUSTIN, Texas — For years, Joshua Raines has been using marijuana illegally to treat the epilepsy and PTSD he developed during his five years in the Army. His diagnosis was set off after suffering a traumatic brain injury during a bomb explosion while in Afghanistan. Raines, 31, has been eligible for a legal prescription of […]
Life-Changing: What Expansion of Texas Medical Cannabis Program Means for Patients
The 86th Texas Legislature will be remembered as a landmark in Lone Star state history for the rights of Texas patients and their families. The new medical cannabis law, passed with bipartisan support and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, significantly expands access to hundreds of thousands more Texas patients. When it was originally established […]
Will Texans give up gun rights to get medical marijuana? Federal government says they have to
AUSTIN — For years, Joshua Raines has been using marijuana illegally to treat the epilepsy and PTSD he developed during his five years in the Army. His diagnosis was set off after suffering a traumatic brain injury during a bomb explosion while in Afghanistan. Raines, 31, has been eligible for a legal prescription of medical marijuana […]
More Texans may soon be able to use medical cannabis — CBD oil — legally
A plan to let more Texans use medical cannabis in the form of CBD oil advanced in the Senate Wednesday, with less than a week left in the legislative session. Fort Worth Republican state Rep. Stephanie Klick had proposed letting Texans with multiple sclerosis, spasticity and any form of epilepsy use the oil, which comes from the hemp […]
Texas House Votes to Significantly Expand Medical Marijuana Law
Christy and Mark Zartler consider cannabis to be their daughter’s “rescue medicine.” Kara, 19, has severe autism and cerebral palsy, and has hurt herself — smacking and punching her face and head repeatedly — for more than a decade. Nothing, including pharmaceutical drugs, worked to calm her, until the Zartlers began illegally using medical marijuana, […]
Texas Rejects Bill To Reduce Marijuana Penalties Despite Just 14% Of The State Saying It Should Be Illegal
Texas lawmakers have dismissed a bill to reduce the penalties for marijuana-related offenses, citing strong opposition to decriminalization despite the fact that a plurality of voters in the state believe the drug should be fully legalized. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declared the legislation “dead” in the Texas Senate just after the House gave the bill […]
Texas House passes bill that reduces penalties for Texans caught with small amounts of marijuana
After a brief discussion, the Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would reduce the penalties for low-level possession of marijuana — a move lauded as a win by those eager for the state to take its first major step toward loosening its staunch marijuana laws. But hopes of turning the bill […]
