Texas expands access to medical cannabis — but advocates say it’s not enough

This text was produced by means of the NPR NextGen/Texas Observer Print Students program, a brand new collaboration designed to supply mentorship and hands-on coaching to scholar journalists and up to date graduates concerned with a profession in investigative journalism.

Each morning when Viridiana Edwards wakes up, she says her physique seems like a roll of aluminum foil crumpled up into a good ball. Her legs are numb; the muscular tissues in her arms and again are tense. She feels so tense that when she lifts her arm as much as brush her tooth, she worries she would possibly pull a muscle. “One of the simplest ways I can describe it, is only a marionette that’s been within the case for years,” Edwards says. “I really feel like a puppet with all of my strings in a knot.” 

So she begins every morning with a sequence of stretches, and by rubbing a do-it-yourself physique oil on her neck — one made with olive oil, chamomile and arnica flowers, and cannabidiol (CBD) derived from hemp. Nearly instantly, she says she begins to chill out. “As soon as I take advantage of my CBD, it’s just like the strings simply fall off.” 

Edwards, 33, is a U.S. Military veteran who struggles with post-traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD) and power ache every day. After serving within the army for a few decade, she obtained medical retirement because of accidents she sustained in Afghanistan. Edwards, like others who’ve advocated for measures to broaden medical marijuana legalization in Texas lately, says hashish is the one factor she’s discovered that’s efficiently handled her signs with out the dangerous unwanted effects of prescribed drugs. Even a small quantity has allowed her to chop again her different treatment from a pair dozen drugs every day to at least one as wanted.  

For the final two legislative periods, Edwards has shared her expertise with Texas lawmakers and urged them to broaden the situations and dosage for authorized hashish. Nevertheless it’s been sluggish shifting. In 2015, Texas lawmakers handed the Compassionate Use Act, which allowed individuals with intractable epilepsy to make use of medical hashish with extraordinarily low ranges of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient that causes a excessive, with a physician’s prescription. Two years later, a invoice to broaden this system had a groundswell of bipartisan help within the Home, however by no means got here to a full vote. In 2019, this system was expanded to incorporate different situations akin to terminal most cancers and neurodegenerative issues, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s illness, however still left out those suffering from PTSD. Texas has one of the restrictive medical marijuana legal guidelines within the nation, and is considered one of 11 states that has a low-THC program. As of Could 2021, there are 36 states that enable for the usage of medical hashish, in line with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Seventeen states enable for small quantities of grownup leisure use. 

This spring, the Texas Home handed House Bill 1535 to lift the cap on THC stage in medicinal merchandise from 0.5% to five%, and broaden the eligible situations to incorporate power ache and PTSD for the primary time. However the measure was narrowed considerably within the Senate, the place power ache was eliminated and the brand new THC restrict was lowered to 1%. Republican state Sens. Bryan Hughes, chair of the senate committee that heard the invoice, and Charles Schwertner, the Senate sponsor, didn’t reply to a request for touch upon why the invoice was narrowed. Some opponents to increasing medical marijuana legalization have stated they imagine it could result in extra leisure use of hashish.  

Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 1535 into legislation on Tuesday.

Veterans, advocates, and medical doctors say the 1% cap on THC is way decrease than many who are suffering from ache, PTSD, and different illnesses really need. Even the 5% allowed within the unique Home invoice is a fraction of what Edwards says she would want to completely deal with her signs. 

In 2005, Edwards, a primary technology U.S. citizen, met a army recruiter at her El Paso highschool throughout her junior yr. Her mother and father advised her they didn’t have the cash to pay for school, so she considered the army as her approach out of her hometown. 

4 years later, she was deployed. On the best way to Kandahar, Afghanistan, she says her flight was delayed due to a rocket assault. “It wasn’t even an hour, after which there was one other rocket assault. There’s an alarm that goes off, and in an English voice, the girl says, ‘rocket assault, rocket assault,’ and at that time you simply dropped to the ground,” she says. “In order that was our welcome.” Edwards says she didn’t sleep in any respect that first evening, as rockets continued, injuring individuals close by, and triggering requests for blood donations.  

When Edwards returned to the US virtually a yr later, her cycle of PTSD signs — anxiousness and power ache — started. Quickly, her ache turned an excessive amount of to bear. She visited a Veterans Affairs clinic, however got here to appreciate that the drugs she was prescribed didn’t assist her situation. Each drugs got here with a brand new facet impact, like excessive weight achieve, drowsiness, dizziness, and nausea. Quickly she was taking extra drugs to deal with these unwanted effects. On the most, Edwards was taking as much as 23 drugs a day of six to seven drugs.

She additionally took Botox for migraines, which required her to obtain 42 injections between her neck, shoulders, skull, and brow on three totally different events. Botox offered some aid, however didn’t utterly cease her migraines. “You form of simply lose hope that you simply’re going to search out one thing that’s going that can assist you,” she says. 

As a youngster, Edwards first tried hashish utilizing a do-it-yourself watermelon bong. Then in 2015, Edwards tried medical hashish for the primary time, whereas on trip in California. “I bear in mind simply this sort of silence inside my physique,” Edwards says of the expertise. “The ache, the anxiousness, simply so many issues that I used to be going by means of every day, had been simply gone.” 

Since then, she’s advocated for expanded entry to authorized medical marijuana again residence in Texas, and studied its impression on veterans whereas at graduate college on the College of Texas at El Paso and on the College of Maryland, Baltimore. Whereas she’s glad PTSD was added as an eligible situation beneath the brand new laws this yr, she says she’s annoyed with the still-strict limits and the sluggish strategy of legalization. “Once I raised my hand in Fort Bliss, Texas, saying that I’d serve my nation, I don’t bear in mind selecting and selecting who I’d serve and shield,” she says. 

The brand new legislation is ready to enter impact in September.

This program is made potential by items from Roxanne Elder in reminiscence of her mom, journalist and journalism trainer Virginia Stephenson Elder, Vincent LoVoi in honor of Jim Marston and Annette LoVoi, and different beneficiant donors.

This text was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative information outlet.

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