As you walk through South Austin’s Texas Originals, you’ll eventually learn to forget what you’re here for.
First, I put on a suit: paper boots, a hairnet, and a lab coat. Next, learn about red, white, and blue light. Inject nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium into plants. Aphids, grown indoors, hermaphrodites.
Wearing glasses and a lab coat, a process manager named Javier Kane points to a machine that slowly rotates a bulbous glass decanter filled with amber-colored slime in a hot bath. On the other side of the machine, ethanol drips into a circular stationary glass bottle.
In the hallways, that amber goo passes through millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. An analytical chemist named Heather Howell explains the company’s high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry processes. My head spins like a bulbous decanter.
Talk to growers about photosynthesis, talk to lab technicians about compounds, and you may not know, except for the smell, of course, that you participated in just a few of the licensed medical marijuana operations in Texas. I can’t.
Nico Richardson, CEO of Texas Originals, said, “Professionally, making cannabis boring is our goal. That’s when we do what we do best.”
The company is playing around with different lighting settings to help marijuana plants grow better.
Chris O’Connell/MySAweed limit
For three licensed Texas dispensary organizations, including Texas Originals, restrictions like the vice grip currently in place made it difficult for medical marijuana to serve such a large state. .
Legalized in 2015 under the Compassionate Use Program (CUP), low-THC cannabis is now medically available to patients in the form of tinctures and gummies, provided there are eligible conditions. Initially, it was intended only for people with intractable epilepsy, but it is now available for people with terminal cancer, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), etc.
However, broader definitions such as chronic pain and anxiety have not yet been explored at this time. Latest estimates put around 50,000 people using the program. Richardson and other medical marijuana advocates now have HB 1805, the bipartisan bill that passed the Texas House of Representatives by a majority, set to be voted on in the current 88th Texas legislature. I hope that
Richardson is cautiously optimistic about the bill passing, based on support within Congress and with voters. The bill would expand the list of eligible conditions to chronic pain and change the upper limit of THC from 1% by weight to 10mg per serving.
It was sponsored by House Public Health Chairman Stephanie Crick, a Fort Worth Republican who sponsored the original legislation.
“It was and still is my purpose to create true medical programs based on scientific data,” Crick recently told The Texas Tribune.
As of May 3, HB 1805 is currently on the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Since then, he seems to have shaken off the stigma that has clung to cannabis. Reefer Madness It looks like a slam-dunk as the bipartisan bill passed the House without debate and the Ministry of Public Security began applying for additional licenses in January.
“I try not to get too enthusiastic,” warns Richardson. “This is Texas politics.”
About 1.5 kilograms of THC processed with Texas Original. By law, licensees cannot sell marijuana flowers.
Chris O’Connell/MySAaccess denied
Even with HB 1805 passed, there are still significant concerns for Richardson and other Texas licensees. It’s access.
The application fee to apply for a license is $7,000, and if approved, the company will owe the state a fee of approximately $500,000 during the valid two-year term.
Richardson, in particular, doesn’t believe the additional licenses will be positive until other regulatory issues improve.
“Even if they issued more licenses, they would not be able to alleviate the patient access problem as they are now because those licenses would be served in jurisdictions very similar to where the licenses are now. “Because it will be done,” he says.
Texas licensees have a statewide policy to prevent Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston from monopolizing the industry and providing care to those with the ability to market marijuana to one of the state’s major metropolitan areas. You must provide medical marijuana.
But by imposing regulations to prevent monopolies, the state has essentially created exactly what it sought to avoid. because it created a serious access problem. Medical marijuana is very expensive in Texas, especially when compared to some nearby states.
State marijuana prices vary by location. An article published by Politico last Christmas outlined how prices in Michigan plummeted due to an increase in production licenses issued in Michigan and low demand. This her March Asbury Park news story showed that New Jersey has the opposite problem. With just 13 licensed growers and growing demand, the price of legal marijuana is so high.
But in Oklahoma, medical marijuana is easier to access and easier on your wallet. At Mango Cannabis, Oklahoma City’s premier dispensary, sweet raspberry gummies 250 milligrams cost him $24.99. At Goodblend, one of his two other licensees in Texas, 200 milligram orange gummies are $60.
Texas Originals makes tinctures and gummies like 1:1 Sour Peach Mango Gummies with 5 milligrams each of THC and CBD.
Chris O’Connell/MySAin conflict
Specifically, current laws and regulations have made medical marijuana operations prohibitively expensive. This is because federal law, Texas medical marijuana law, and the Department of Public Safety regulations that govern CUP conflict with each other.
Companies like Texas Originals have pickup locations in Nacogdoches and Lubbock. However, federal law stipulates that products cannot be shipped by road or air through the United States Postal Service or any private company.
Licensees are forced to hire their own ground transportation crews before considering that they can only store product in one location under current DPS regulations. That means Texas Originals He has 11 off-site locations, and any product that isn’t picked up at the operating small window must be brought back to the South Austin flagship store the same day. Richardson said his 10 drivers for the company said he put 880,000 miles on the car in 2022 alone.
“It’s completely stupid,” Richardson says. DPS did not return the request for comment.
But companies haven’t focused on this part of the access problem until after the session. one step at a time.
“I am confident that ultimately we will be able to provide better access to patients,” he says.
Now that weeds have become boring, growers face new challenges. Spreading that boredom around.