HOUSTON — During the 89th Regular Legislative Session, Texas lawmakers filed more than 8,500 bills.
Lawmakers passed around 1,200 of them.
Even though Governor Greg Abbott has signed several bills into law, including the new voucher system and a massive public school funding bill, the focus has now turned to just one: Senate Bill 3, the THC ban.
Like the rest of Texas, state Senator Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, wants to know if the Governor will sign the bill.
“Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it?” said Sen. Bettencourt on Inside Texas Politics.
Sen. Bettencourt knows there are two competing interests trying to sway the governor: those who support the ban, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and the industry itself, which is urging the governor to veto the legislation.
And according to an April survey by the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin, only 40% of Republicans said marijuana laws should be stricter in Texas. That number was only 18% among Democrats and 29% among independents.
Sen. Bettencourt says lawmakers actually passed two bills during the session that thread the needle.
While SB 3 bans THC, scientifically known as tetrahydrocannabinol, the ingredient that makes a user feel high, House Bill 46 expands the state’s medical marijuana program.
If the Governor signs HB 46, Texas patients in the state’s medical marijuana program could legally use it for more conditions, now including chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, and Crohn’s disease. Those patients could also use the product in different forms, including patches, lotions, vapes and inhalers.
“So, there’s clearly medical uses of these cannabinoids that are acceptable and that help people,” said Sen. Bettencourt. “And then you’ve got balance it with this totally unregulated, out-of-state, billion-dollar-a-year business that’s flooding gas stations and, you know, whatever counters with these unregulated products that are really going to cause people long-term addiction issues if not worse.”
