The notion that it’s “crazy” is because cannabis is still illegal in Texas, which is home to some of the strictest anti-marijuana laws in the nation.
While still relatively low, the number of Texans utilizing the state’s medicinal marijuana Compassionate Use Program has grown by 180 percent over the past year.
For now, goodblend Texas is one of only three companies licensed to cultivate and sell marijuana in the state.
And as of March, there were only 4,919 patients registered with the Compassionate Use Program, according to the Department of Public Safety.
While steadily increasing, the number of Texas patients pales in comparison to what’s seen in nearby states such as Oklahoma, where roughly 8 percent of the state’s population — over 300,000 people — are medical marijuana patients, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project.
It owns medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida, Massachusetts and Nevada and recently acquired retail shops in Chicago, bringing to about 50 its number of locations nationwide.
And it will create hundreds of jobs in the area, the company has said.
House Bill 1535 would allow patients suffering from chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, cancer or other conditions approved by the state health department to be treated with medical cannabis.
The growth in medical cannabis, both in Texas and across the nation, made it a nearly $6 billion industry in 2019, according to New Frontier Data, an analytics company that tracks the industry.
The bill would also increase the cap on the amount of the chemical that gets users high — THC.