I recently traveled to the Southwest Cannabis Conference (SWCC), an established B2B cannabis conference being held for the first time ever in Fort Worth. My mission: to assess the state of weed in Texas.

I wrote up part one of my two part series in this month’s mg magazine. Here’s a snippet from the piece:

The Lone Star State is known for many things – Longhorn football, savory BBQ, and having one of the most business friendly governments in the US. And according to experts, Texas may also soon be known as the place for accessible canna business opportunity.

The Texas Compassionate Use Act (Senate Bill 339), signed by Governor Greg Abbott, went into effect on June 1, 2015. It allows qualifying patients access to “low-THC cannabis” – marijuana that contains 10% or more CBD and not more than 0.5% THC. The law authorizes licensed businesses to cultivate, process, and provide compliant cannabis to qualifying patients and requires the Texas Department of Safety (DPS), which oversees the program, to license at least three “dispensing organizations” by September 1, 2017. DPS also must create and maintain a secure registry of diagnosed patients and the physicians who treat them.

At first glance, Texas appears to be setting a very limited stage for its cannabis industry. “While it does lay a solid foundation for a workable medical marijuana program, [Senate Bill 339] is unreasonably restrictive in that it allows only patients with intractable epilepsy to access low-THC cannabis products,” Heather Fazio, Political Director of the Texas Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), explained to mg. “The bill also had some flawed legal language, which makes it very risky for doctors to participate.”

But there’s more to it – and though it won’t happen overnight, the Compassionate Use Act also outlines several provisions that point to a Texas-sized industry on the horizon…

This piece was a lady-party of amazing women involved in the professional canna-biz, including  MPP’s Fazio, attorney Shawn Hauser, Texas NORML’s Jax Finkel, and Executive Director and Co-founder of the Texas Cannabis Industry Association (TCIA), Kayla Brown.

mg is print only, so if you’d like to read the full piece you can subscribe here or pick up a copy at your local Barnes & Noble. Texas is the second largest state in the US and has the second largest population — big things are coming to a place where everything is generally bigger, y’all — what do you think about weed in Texas?

(pictured: bluebonnets and weed in Texas)

Interested in more B2B cannabis coverage? Check out summaries from mg right here.

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