Nine cannabis providers were tentatively added Monday to the state's rapidly expanding medical marijuana program, dramatically increasing the number of dispensaries that can offer medical-grade, prescription-only THC treatments to qualified patients, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said.
The new companies, if they pass a final evaluation by the state, will join the three current license holders in the 10-year-old Texas Compassionate Use Program and be allowed to cultivate, manufacture, distribute and/or sell medical cannabis products through the program. Three more "conditional licenses" will be awarded by next April, DPS officials said.
Known as TCUP, the program serves about 116,000 patients in what has been one of the nation's most anemic state medical marijuana programs. It's a number state leaders and other medical marijuana supporters hope will grow now that lawmakers expanded the program earlier this year. The program is administered by the DPS.
The expansion comes as the state's hemp industry – the legal, adult-use side of the cannabis market in Texas with more than 9,000 licensed retailers – wrestles with a potential federal ban on all hemp-based consumable items. Congress recently voted to make them illegal by November 2026, although there is movement in Washington D.C. to pass a law regulating the products and pre-empting the threatened ban.
Read more at The Dallas Morning News
