What Are the Hot Topics Being Discussed at This Week’s Texas Cannabis Policy Conference?

Speakers at a past Texas Cannabis Policy Conference (Photo Courtesy of Texans for Responsible Marijuana Use)

When I tell my friends I’m going to a cannabis conference this weekend, they’re probably imagining an expo center with booths giving away free grinders and B-Real From Cypress Hill is signing autographs, but I’m guaranteed to see zero guys in beanies at this event.

It’s the annual gathering put on by Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, an Austin-based advocacy nonprofit that prides itself on being multi-partisan and sensible – after all, they have “responsible” in their name. Fittingly, their Texas Cannabis Policy Conference again takes place at Texas A&M University, the historically conservative college that also operates a respected hemp breeding research program.

Looking at the fifth year conference’s programming, almost every speaker has the initials M.D., Ph.D., or CEO next to their name, which tells me I should wear a collared shirt, but also that I’m going to hear lots of smart people talking about weed. Thus, I’m expecting something like the Texas Tribune Festival of cannabis.

I wanted to get a sense of the topics that Texas’ cannabis braintrust is interested in for the conference, so I called Heather Fazio – a founding board member at Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy – to break down the issues at play.

She pointed to medical cannabis expansion. Texas’ Compassionate Use Program is currently available for a limited number of conditions, but with the legislative session just four months away, there will likely be efforts to broaden access.

“At minimum, we’d like to see pain added as a qualifying condition,” Fazio says. “Ideally, we’d like to see doctors making the decision of whether or not they think a patient can benefit, but understanding where lawmakers are and wanting to keep it tightly regulated, adding pain would help a lot of people be able to use cannabis as an alternative to opioids, which are dangerous and addictive. We know that people are able to use fewer opiate pills when they use cannabis and many are reporting they’re able to kick the pills entirely and just use cannabis to control their pain. Sadly, Texas continues to deprive those patients of that medicine.”

Senator José Menéndez, who co-authored the legislation that created a medical cannabis program in Texas, back in 2015, and has continually championed efforts to expand the program will deliver the event’s keynote on Saturday.

Heather Fazio

Fazio says another medical cannabis issue discussed at the conference will likely be expanding opportunities for entrepreneurs. She reports that it currently costs a half a million dollars to get a license under Texas’ Compassionate Use Program and then they have to pay $315,000 every two years on top of that. The goal, she says, should be to get more licenses and have lower licensing fees.

Perhaps the hottest topic at the event will be how to address the chaos of the psychoactive hemp market that has exploded in Texas in recent years – one in which random gas stations sell purportedly legal smokable hemp products from brands that you’ve never heard of and the Department of State Health Services lacks the bandwidth to spot-check the thousands of retailers.

“We’re going to be talking about how we can regulate cannabis in a way that makes sense for both adult use and the medical side,” she says. “Because right now we don’t have the regulations in place that we would have wanted had we been establishing an adult use market. Instead, it happened in a roundabout way and we don’t even have things like age restrictions in place. We have no packaging standards to make sure it’s child resistant.”

Asked about specific conference sessions that interest her, Fazio listed the following:

• Friday’s afternoon’s Cannabis Consumer Education and Industry Responsibility session, moderated by public safety expert Christine Adams. “With the government lagging behind, we’re wanting the industry to step up to make sure consumers are well informed,” Fazio says.

• Either of Dr. Ethan Russo’s presentations. The renowned cannabis researcher’s Friday keynote focuses on product innovation from minor cannabinoids (THC and CBD are just two of over a hundred different cannabinoids in marijuana), while his Saturday session will discuss dosing and titration in regard to various medical conditions.

• Saturday’s panel titled Testing, Recalls, and Accountability for Consumer Protection. “Right now, there’s a lot of opportunity for lab-shopping where businesses will send their product to different labs until they get the results they’re looking for,” Fazio says. “In gray states like Texas, they want lower levels of THC on their label so it’s compliant, so they’re looking for labs that give them that or labs that will overlook potentially dangerous levels of pesticides, microbes, or heavy metals. And in Texas, we don’t even have standards about residual solvents in cannabis products.”