The Lone Star State has been slow to the medical marijuana party.
But that’s about to change.
Texas is set to have more than three medical dispensaries in the near future, and once they’re up and running, we can only hope that more will follow.
The state has yet to decide how many licenses it will open up for medical marijuana dispensaries, but anything is better than the current state of the market.
The Lone Star State’s Lonely Dispensaries
The Texas Medical Marijuana Program has been a disaster since the moment it was implemented.
Currently, only three dispensaries serve the entire state, which is insane because there are almost 30 million people in Texas. Those three dispensaries are also all in central Texas, so if you want to get your medicine and live in, say, Corpus Christi, you’re in for a hell of a road trip.
Texans are pretty vocally unhappy with the lack of infrastructure, but the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has also announced that it won’t act on any applications for medical marijuana licenses until the 2023 legislative session.
The Compassionate Use Program (TCUP), which operates under the DPS, is open to applications but is not approving any of them. The DPS cites concern over future legislative changes as their reason for refusing to act.
They state that they “may” open applications again if and when a bill that could change cannabis law passes in the next legislative session.
Why would they expect anything different from a system that changes governments every two to four years? The answer is either they’re idiots, or they’re just making up excuses—or both.
No matter the reason, TCUP blatantly prevents people from accessing their literal medicine by limiting the supply. Texans voted yes for medical marijuana, and TCUP and the Texas Government are standing in the way of democracy and free market principles.
The Tokelahoma Model
Oklahomans have embraced medical cannabis with open arms. The state has no limit on marijuana business licenses, and the cost of a license is just $2,500. That means that there are now more than 9,000 grow operations in Oklahoma!
That’s a lot of green—and it’s growing every year.
If you’re looking for a place where you can get into the marijuana game without having to deal with too many restrictions, Oklahoma is your best bet. While some states cap the number of dispensaries and farms (and even how much each farm can produce), Oklahoma has no such limits.
The state also doesn’t have a cap on how many cannabis retail shops can open up, so if you’re considering getting into the game, Oklahoma might be the place for you. It already has more retail cannabis stores than Colorado, Oregon, and Washington combined! Plus, it made the state almost $140 million in 2022.
That’s a lot more than Texas, which has been dragging its feet on legalizing medical cannabis for a decade now. The Lone Star state has only three cannabis stores and one growing facility, despite having nearly three times as many residents as Oklahoma.
So why is Oklahoma so much better at getting its residents access to cannabis? It’s because they took a free-market approach, whereas Texas decided to go with strict regulations that make it harder for patients to get what they need.
With a state as big as Texas, it’s not a surprise that it takes a little longer to get things done than in some smaller states. But we’re not sure how much longer we can wait for medical marijuana to be legalized here.
We hope that soon, Texas will be able to join the rest of America and start making progress on legalization.
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