Texas Cannabis Market

On June 1, 2015, Gov. Greg Abbot signed SB 339 – a limited medical cannabis bill, known as the Texas Compassionate Use Act – into law to allow patients with intractable epilepsy to access low-THC (not more than 0.5%), high-CBD (10% or more CBD) medical cannabis.

The Texas Department of Public Safety set to work creating a registry of doctors who could prescribe medical cannabis, and three organizations – Compassionate Cultivation, Surterra Texas and Knox Medical – have been licensed to grow, process and sell medical cannabis to patients.

Roughly 45 doctors have signed up to prescribe the medical cannabis to about 600 of the estimated 150,000 epilepsy patients.

In June 2019, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 3703, a measure that adds multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, terminal cancer, autism and many kinds of seizure disorders to the state’s list of qualifying medical cannabis conditions.

In June 2021, a new bill (House Bill 1535) was signed into law to permit the use of low-THC cannabis (1%) for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as any form of cancer, instead of only terminal cancer.

As of December 2021, over 16,000 patients have been listed in the Compassionate Use Registry.

In November 2022, Texas voters in five cities, Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen, and San Marcos, approved local cannabis decriminalization initiatives, following Austin’s lead in May 2022.

Texas Hemp Market

On March 15^th, 2019, John Hellerstedt, Commissioner of the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, signed an amendment to remove hemp from the list of controlled substances. The amendment was signed and sent to the Texas Register for publishing. It became effective on April 5^th, 2019.

On June 10, 2019, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 1325 to legalize the cultivation and processing of hemp and hemp-derived products, including cannabidiol (CBD) in the State.

The Texas Department of Agriculture submitted the state hemp plan to USDA on December 2, 2019 and it was approved by the USDA on January 27, 2020.  Administrative rules were published in January 2020 and became effective March 11.

The state requires separate licenses for cultivation and processing hemp. Each license costs $100 per registration plus an additional $100 licensing fee per location.

Fees for each THC test if performed by the Department are capped at $300. Field inspections would be random.  Testing can be also performed by an institution of higher education or an independent testing laboratory registered under Section 122.152. If the testing reveals THC levels >0.3% then the crop must be destroyed.

Texas hemp farmers received permits to cultivate almost 5,500 acres in 2020. National Hemp Report revealed that about 2,800 acres of industrial hemp were planted in 2021 and Hemp Benchmarks reports all types of hemp in Texas for 2022 at 2,145 acres.

It is estimated that if about 1 million people (3% of Texas population) used a 6-ounce bottle of CBD oil per month, then about 20,000-25,000 acres of production nationally would fulfill that demand.

Fiber production can be a different challenge. With regard to the potential area for industrial hemp in Texas and at the national level, fiber production would have a big impact on farming systems, including the substantial opportunity to rotate crops.  An establish fiber hemp industry might entail several hundred thousand acres.