In 2015, Texas lawmakers passed a bill that would allow patients suffering from epilepsy to take a type of marijuana oil high in CBD-oil but low in the psychoactive chemical THC to treat their chronic illness.
A year later public safety officials are still working out the details on how it will be dispensed and to whom, but a San Antonio lawmaker would like to expand that law before it even takes hold in the state.
Democratic State Sen. Jose Menendez says the law should allow doctors to treat all patients in need of this type of medication and it shouldn’t be limited to just one element of the plant.
“If we are compassionate about people with epilepsy, then we should be compassionate about people with cancer, and cataracts and glaucoma and veterans who are being put on all kinds of opioids. It is senseless to me that the State of Texas thinks it knows better than people’s doctors," Menendez says.
Menendez says he plans to file his medical marijuana bill on the first day of early filing ahead of the 2017 legislative session.
State Republicans added expanding Texas’ Compassionate Use Act to it’s state party platform earlier this summer, but Gov. Greg Abbott remains firm he will not sign a medical marijuana bill into law should it pass out of the legislature.