Medical marijuana debate begins long before legislative session

By Jane Caffrey

 

Two state legislators want to expand medical marijuana use in Texas.

CORPUS CHRISTI - The next legislative session does not get underway until next year, but the debate around medical marijuana is already getting fired up.

Two state legislators are pushing to expand a 2015 law that currently allows for very limited use of medical cannabis to treat epilepsy. At the recent Republican State Convention, party members also called for legislation that would allow doctors to determine the use of medical cannabis for patients.

The Texas House and Senate passed a bill last year that allows patients with a rare form of epilepsy to be treated with part of the marijuana plant called cannabidiol, or CBD, that does not create a high.

However Corpus Christi resident Kathleen Gray suffers from epilepsy, and says the bill is not enough.

"It's going to help intractable epilepsy. My epilepsy is not intractable," Gray said.

Gray treats her epilepsy with prescription medication now, but she says she would prefer medicinal marijuana because her prescription gives her bad side effects.

"My bone density has been destroyed," Gray said. "At times the balance is gone, my vision, the eyes can start moving back and forth, I can see double. There's a tremendous list."

San Antonio Senator Jose Menendez and Representative Jason Isaac of Dripping Springs are looking to expand last year's bill to include more patients like Gray. Local activist Kyle Hoelscher, President of NORML Corpus Christi, agrees and is pushing other state legislators for more medical cannabis options.

"It should be expanded," Hoelscher said. "The legislation is extremely restrictive and makes it basically useless in Texas."

Hoelscher is referring to wording in the bill that says doctors can "prescribe" medical marijuana. That wording needs to be tweaked to allow doctors to "recommend" cannabis, because under current federal law marijuana cannot be prescribed.

Hoelscher also believes the limited type of treatment for one disease does not serve enough patients.

"The people who need medical cannabis is higher than anyone thinks," Hoelscher said. "These are cancer patients, these are elderly people, these are veterans. These are people whose children have epilepsy, and not just the defined types of epilepsy in the bill."

However others are wary. Some believe more access to marijuana, even for medical reasons, opens the door to abuse.

"Our legislature here is probably looking at it as industry they could let into the state," said Wade Fjeld, Executive Director of the Palmer Drug Abuse Program. "I'm here to tell them that it's another drug that destroys lives."

Long before running the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, Fjeld smoked marijuana as a teenager. He says for him, the drug enhanced his long struggle with addiction. 

"I believe strongly because of how easily available it was to me that we should do as much as we can to limit it to the kids and young adults," Fjeld said. "People will find all sorts of reasons to say that I need the medical marijuana. So certainly it can be abused and it would be abused."

Twenty-five states and Washington D.C. currently have laws that legalize marijuana in some form.
Despite the Texas bill passing last year, no permits have been issued for dispensaries yet. The first permits are scheduled to be granted next summer.