Medical marijuana is coming to Texas next year, and next week the Medcan Foundation will conduct a two-day seminar in El Paso to talk about getting into the business.
“Our course is designed for everybody – dispensaries, cultivators, processors, patients and doctors,” said Medcan’s director of operations, Henry Levinski.
Medcan is charging $300 a head for the seminar on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 6 and 7, at the Camino Real Hotel.
“If you want to grow it, we teach you how,” Levinski said. “If you’re a patient and wonder what it’s good for, we tell you the uses of the medication.
“If you want to have a dispensary, we actually have someone that builds them and can talk about what it takes to do it. But it’s more than putting in a storefront. You have to go to the city to get your permit.”
Levinski said he believes the state’s program could be up and running in early 2017.
But anyone who’s thinking the medical marijuana program in Texas will look and operate anything like New Mexico’s would be very wrong.
In New Mexico, anyone approved for medical marijuana for an assortment of medical and mental conditions can walk into a dispensary and chose from a wide array of cannabis products, including smokable marijuana varieties.
You can even smoke a sample in the store, and those varieties will get you high, as will the edible products.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen in Texas.
Only for epilepsy
The state’s Republican controlled legislature approved the medicinal use of cannabis for one medical condition: intractable epilepsy.
“That means doctors tried two other forms of therapy or medication without success,” Levinski said.
The medicinal cannabis available under the Texas Compassionate Use Act does not permit smokable products or any product that would create an altered or intoxicated state.
“We like the way Texas is going at it,” Levinski said. “It’s starting with baby steps and it will be controlled versus the other states where it’s just wide open.
“This is going to be a medicine, not a drug.”
The products available in Texas will include edibles, oils and creams and are low in THC, the principal psychoactive constituent, as they say in science.
Approved by the Texas Legislature in 2015, the program enabled by the Compassionate Use Act will be overseen by the Public Safety Commission and administered by the Department of Public Safety.
DPS issued a request for offers from interested vendors that could create and manage the state’s database of physicians, patients, prescriptions and dispensaries.
The agency denied El Paso Inc.’s request for an interview with someone familiar with the details of the state’s efforts and for the names of those who submitted proposals and even the number of proposals received.
“DPS is evaluating the responses received,” DPS spokesman Tom Vinger wrote in an email. “A vendor will be selected as quickly as practical in accordance with all applicable rules and contracting and procurement procedures and guidelines.
“While the proposals are still being evaluated, information is considered confidential according to state procurement guidelines,” he wrote.
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Full Article: Medical Marijuana Seminar Coming To El Paso
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