The Texas Senate has approved a House-passed bill to expand the state’s medical marijuana program, with amendments, including to restore the addition of chronic pain as a qualifying condition for cannabis after the key provision was stripped out at the legislation’s last committee stop.
The measure from Rep. Cody Harris (R) advanced through the Senate on Tuesday. Because it was amended, it will need to return to the House of Representatives for concurrence before potentially being sent to the governor’s desk.
The measure would add additional dispensaries and expand the state’s list of qualifying conditions to include chronic pain, while also allowing medical marijuana for end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care.
As passed by the House, the currently limited list of conditions would have also been extended to include glaucoma, traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal neuropathy, Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel disease and degenerative disc disease. But those conditions were removed in the Senate State Affairs Committee.
The bill will allow patients to access a wider range of cannabis product types, including patches, lotions, suppositories, approved inhalers, nebulizers and and vaping devices.
Members of the Senate State Affairs Committee had also removed chronic pain from the list, drawing
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