Texas Tribune.
Wesley Barnes, de 55 años, veterano de la Guerra del Golfo, ha luchado contra el dolor crónico y el TEPT desde su exposición al gas sarín en el extranjero. Tras dejar el Ejército en 1994, pasó años adicto a opiáceos recetados.
“Realmente no hay nada en el Departamento de Asuntos de Veteranos que ayude con el dolor o la ansiedad que no sea adictivo”, dijo Barnes desde su casa en Onalaska, a unos 48 kilómetros al este de Huntsville. “Era un zombi en el sofá”.
Barnes calificó para el programa de marihuana medicinal de Texas, también llamado Programa de Uso Compasivo, poco después de su expansión en 2021. Pagó $600 en visitas al médico para inscribirse y pagó otros $600 a $800 al mes para comprar cannabis medicinal legal.
“El médico me aseguró que podía recetarme la cantidad necesaria”, recordó Barnes. “Le dije: ‘Claro que puedes, pero no me lo puedo permitir’”.
Barnes recurrió brevemente a la compra ilegal de cannabis antes de descubrir que podía aliviar su dolor con productos legales de cáñamo. Podía comprar por 40 dólares lo que le costaba 220 dólares en la calle.
“No me hagas volver al mercado negro”, dijo Barnes.
Ahora que Texas busca prohibir los productos de cáñamo y expandir el programa estatal de marihuana medicinal, algunos pacientes con dolor crónico, como Barnes, afirman que no planean participar en el Programa de Uso Compasivo, incluso si los productos de THC al por menor se vuelven ilegales. Sus preocupaciones se centran en el alto costo, la inflexibilidad de las dosis y los problemas de derechos civiles que plantea la alternativa legal.
El veto del gobernador Greg Abbott es el último obstáculo que queda para un proyecto de ley que prohibiría todos los productos que contengan tetrahidrocannabinol, o THC, lo que probablemente significaría el fin de la efímera industria del cáñamo del estado.
El Proyecto de Ley Senatorial 3 , que prohíbe la posesión de productos de cáñamo consumibles que contengan cualquier cannabinoide sintético, conocido comúnmente como delta-8, fue una prioridad en esta sesión legislativa para el vicegobernador Dan Patrick , quien a menudo denunció los efectos de la droga en los niños. Patrick no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios de The Texas Tribune.
Hemp users, retailers, growers and some Republicans have been urging Abbott to axe the bill. Asked whether Abbott would veto SB 3 by the June 22 deadline, his press secretary Andrew Mahaleris said the governor is still reviewing all pending legislation.
As a concession of sorts to veterans and THC users with chronic conditions, House Bill 46 also passed this legislative session, expanding the types of products, number of dispensaries and qualifying health conditions for the medical marijuana program, as well as reducing some of the costly regulations on dispensaries.
Jervonne Singletary, community relations manager for Austin medical marijuana company Good Blend, said the new rules should translate into lower prices for customers.
“With any limited program at the start, it’s expensive, and then when it slowly expands overtime, and more locations come online, and more operators come online, more cultivation spaces come online, then naturally the prices of the medicine come down,” she said.
Accessibility of hemp-derived THC
William Macbrohn, a 57-year-old Air Force veteran living in San Antonio, worked as a warehouse manager at Habitat for Humanity until psoriatic arthritis prevented him from doing his job.
“I’m in pain 24/7. On a good day, I’m at a five or a six. I mow the lawn and I’m done for two days,” Macbrohn said.
Macbrohn only uses consumable hemp products at night to help ease his pain enough to fall asleep. He found them after years of searching for a product that he believed was neither physically addictive nor had unpredictable mental effects like Ambien.
“Finally, all this time that I’ve been suffering, I found something that’ll help that’s not a synthetic chemical … and they’re going to go and take it away,” he said.
Macbrohn qualifies for the state’s Compassionate Use Program but has avoided signing up for it because he regularly carries a concealed gun. He believes carrying a weapon and having a medical marijuana card would be illegal under federal law, though not Texas law. “I don’t want to take that chance,” said Macbrohn, who believes concealed-carrying and using consumable hemp while it’s still legal is permissible.
The issue of the federal legality of both using state-level legal marijuana and owning a gun remains a gray area nationwide. The 2021 case of an El Paso woman convicted of federal crimes for both owning firearms and illegally possessing marijuana was overturned by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in January as “inconsistent with our history and tradition of firearms regulations.” However, the U.S. Department of Justice has appealed cases with similar facts to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the issue broadly.
Macbrohn’s commitment to abiding by the law extends to the potential hemp ban. Possessing consumable hemp products under the bill would be an expungeable Class C misdemeanor punishable with a fine up to $500 and no jail time.
“If they ban it, then I guess I’m done,” he said.
For the time being, Macbrohn is stockpiling consumable hemp products.
Donna Maniscalco, a 62-year-old Navy veteran living in Lometa, served nearly 19 years as a chaplain’s assistant before being discharged for medical reasons in 2009. Stationed for a time in Keflavik, Iceland, where she was repeatedly “picked up by the wind and just literally thrown,” she developed spinal injuries that surgeons have declined to operate on.
Maniscalco says that consumable hemp products allow her to maintain a normal lifestyle and to garden, which helps her mental health. Without them, she’d “probably be in bed all day.”
Maniscalco, like Macbrohn, is also concerned that putting her name on a list could infringe on her right to carry a firearm.
Maniscalco said that if the ban goes into effect she may move in with her parents who live in upstate New York where cannabis and consumable hemp products are widely legal and available.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, “I have friends here. I have two sons and a daughter here. I love the long growing season. I love Texas.”
Wesley Barnes posa para un retrato en su garaje en Onalaska, Texas, el domingo 15 de junio de 2025. Barnes, un veterano de la Guerra del Golfo que ha luchado durante mucho tiempo contra el dolor crónico, probó previamente opiáceos legales y THC ilegal antes de encontrar un alivio asequible y efectivo en la flor de cáñamo legal en 2018. Desde que hizo el cambio, dice que también dejó de beber alcohol y ha perdido una cantidad significativa de peso.
Wesley Barnes sits next to a wide variety of prescribed medications in his garage in Onalaska. Barnes says he doesn’t them take anymore. Credit: Ishika Samant for the Texas Tribune
Barnes said among the allures of hemp products is that they come in different strains that create an ultra-personalized treatment option. Meanwhile, with the medical marijuana program, doctors are prohibited from prescribing cannabis doses higher than 10 milligrams at a time, forcing “the price higher for someone who has more pain,” Barnes said.
Can medical marijuana expand quickly enough?
HB 46 expands the state’s medical marijuana program by including more popular products such as prescribed inhalers and vaping devices and adding nine dispensers to bring the total to 12. It also adds traumatic brain injuries, chronic pain, Crohn’s disease, and terminal illnesses to the list of qualifying conditions.
But the bill’s biggest change that could lower prices for consumers will be allowing medical marijuana distributors to store their products in various satellite locations instead of having to drive across the state to return the product to the original dispensary every day.
This has made products more expensive and limited where the medical marijuana program can reach.
Singletary said prices should decline now that medical marijuana companies can stock products overnight in designated locations.
But, she clarified she doesn’t expect medical marijuana to be as accessible as hemp immediately. More than 8,000 retailers in Texas now sell hemp-derived THC products. Before starting the expansion process, the medical marijuana industry will need a few months after the law goes into effect on Sept. 1 to clarify some of the technical details of the new legislation, Singletary said.
“Hemp exploded overnight,” she said, “but we are going to have measured growth.”
While hemp might become illegal in Texas, it still will be federally legal, meaning mail-order hemp products will still be an option for some, but Singletary said she doesn’t feel the need to compete with this industry.
“There are millions of Texans who want quality, regulated products in the state and don’t want to trust mail-order hemp, so the folks who feel like that is the option for them, I respect their decision, I truly do, but those who want doctor prescribed cannabis that’s produced in the state that is regulated, tested, and validated, then come to our program,” she said.
Regulation versus a ban
Since the wave of recreational marijuana legalization began with Colorado and Washington in 2012, large scale studies have repeatedly found that marijuana use in general increases when cannabis is legal. Other studies have shown that use decreases when cannabis becomes criminalized, suggesting Texas will likely follow a similar path despite some users saying they plan on circumventing the THC ban.
For more than a century, government officials and public health experts have debated the efficacy of cannabis prohibition in achieving a variety of aims.
Civil rights attorneys argue that drug criminalization comes with a civil liberties cost. A 2020 ACLU report found that “more than six million [marijuana related] arrests occurred between 2010 and 2018” and that “Black people are 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession, notwithstanding comparable usage rates.”
Kirsten Budwine, a policy attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said, “This is not just bad policy, but a step backward into the failed logic of the War on Drugs … What it really does is turn a regulatory issue into a criminal one.”
Decades of studies affirm the utility of cannabinoids in treating chronic pain. A 2017 review of over 10,000 studies found “substantial evidence” that cannabinoids are good for treating chronic pain and “moderate evidence” that extensive cannabinoid use impairs memory and attention.
Medical experts agree that incidences of cannabis-induced psychosis like the ones Patrick has referenced in press conferences, do occur, especially when exposing high-THC products to a broad population without safeguards.
El año pasado, las Academias Nacionales de Ciencias, Ingeniería y Medicina respondieron a la creciente preocupación por la expansión del consumo de cannabis en el país, solicitando que los productos derivados del cáñamo no regulados se regulen de la misma manera que otros productos intoxicantes de cannabis a nivel federal. El informe también instó a realizar campañas de educación pública sobre los riesgos del cannabis y a que los estados impidan que los menores de edad adquieran la droga, en lugar de prohibir totalmente los productos con THC o penalizar la posesión de cannabis.
Los usuarios y la industria del cáñamo habían dicho a los legisladores de Texas que acogerían con satisfacción la reglamentación de la industria del cáñamo para abordar esas preocupaciones, en lugar de una prohibición total.
Barnes teme que la nueva era del cáñamo ilegal pueda crear aún más peligros que antes.
“¿Quieren que vuelva con un tipo en la esquina y esperemos que no tenga fentanilo? ¿O que me disparen por 200 dólares o lo que sea?”, dijo.
Wesley Barnes, de 55 años, fuma un porro en su casa de Onalaska, Texas, el domingo 15 de junio de 2025. Barnes, un veterano de la Guerra del Golfo que ha luchado durante mucho tiempo contra el dolor, probó opiáceos legales y THC ilegal durante años antes de encontrar un alivio asequible y efectivo en la flor de cáñamo legal a partir de 2018.
Barnes fuma un porro hecho con flores de cáñamo, actualmente legales, en su casa de Onalaska. Crédito: Ishika Samant para el Texas Tribune.
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