Texas’ medical marijuana program is set to expand after lawmakers approved a major change package for the Texas Compassionate Use Program, which officials say will bring more providers into the system, broaden the set of qualifying medical conditions, and increase the number of dispensing organizations. The changes were rolled out in September and are expected to accelerate the industry’s growth in Texas, with current operators planning additional storage and satellite locations to improve access for patients.
The September expansion added new qualifying conditions to the program, including chronic pain, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, traumatic brain injury and terminal illness. The program also expanded treatment options, including prescribed inhalers, higher THC limits, and improved dispensary access across the state.
In addition, the expansion will increase the number of marijuana distributors from three to 15. Lawmakers enacted the changes after distributors in the program said strict state regulations on THC amounts, locations and cultivation hampered growth and contributed to them losing patients to cheaper, more accessible and diverse hemp products.
Nico Richardson, CEO of Texas Original, said the program’s regulatory costs could decline as expansion takes effect. “What made TCUP expensive in the past was the fact that you had this niche program with a huge regulatory burden on top of it. Now, as you expand the program, the cost of regulation becomes a smaller percentage, and therefore the marginal cost of products will come down over time,” Richardson said.
State records also show that patient enrollment has already risen. The Texas Department of Public Safety reported that by the end of 2025, 135,470 patients were listed in the Compassionate Use Registry by their physicians—about 32% more than the previous year—according to the report. Distributors attributed the jump to the announcement and rollout of the expansion.
The immediate effect of the law is expected to benefit Texas Original, goodblend and Fluent, largely because those companies sell products online. While the companies described in the report had not opened additional storefronts yet, they have created more satellite locations across Texas to store products, which they said can reduce overhead and allow faster delivery. Before the law, distributors said they would have to return products to the original dispensary each day.
Richardson said Texas Original plans to set up a satellite location in all 11 public health regions within the next six months. The company also said it expanded its cultivation capacity, moving from a 7,700-square-foot facility to a new 75,000-square-foot headquarters in Bastrop. Meanwhile, goodblend opened its first satellite location in San Antonio for same-day pick-up and planned further expansion to reach remote locations, with spokesperson Jervonne Singletary saying the company is also working on new vaporization products and expects something within six months.
The licensing expansion under House Bill 46 adds 12 licensed dispensing organizations by April 1, and DPS officials said the first phase is already underway. The Texas Department of Public Safety reported awarding nine businesses with conditional licenses, but those organizations are not authorized to cultivate, manufacture, distribute or sell cannabis products until the department grants final approval, according to DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen.
Nolen also said House Bill 46 does not allow dispensing organizations to operate more than one satellite location in a single public health region until they operate at least one satellite location in each region. The report said the newly approved distributors include companies that operate in cannabis markets outside Texas, and they are expected to rely on existing resources to start operations quickly. George Archos, founder and CEO of Chicago-based Vernano, said the company will serve public health region 10 in West Texas and said it expects to put plants in the ground grown in Texas and delivered to patients in accordance with the law.
Distributors said the timeline for full operations will vary. The report said conditional dispensing organizations have up to two years after final approval to become operational, but Singletary expected it might be a little after nine months to a year once the additional businesses begin operating. She also said prices for medical marijuana products that range from $40 to $70 could continue to drop based on what she has seen in other states that have expanded similar programs, but she tied the improvement to the availability of more providers and logistics capacity.
Even with the program’s expansion and the expected increase in dispensing organizations, the report said distributors identified a separate bottleneck: limited medical provider participation. The report described how medical providers are the first entry point into the program because patients need to ask their physician whether they qualify.
Richardson said Texas has about 80,000 board-certified physicians, but only 800 are registered in the TCUP program. Singletary said distributors were focused on physicians because they are essential to patient enrollment. She also said in an ideal world more Texas doctors would be in the program, even as some distributors use telemedicine to connect patients with specialized providers across the state.
The report said both distributors and at least one clinician described a lack of awareness among providers as a factor in sluggish registration. Richardson said state agencies have mostly been hands-off on spreading awareness, leaving education largely to distributors. Brimberry, an Austin-based doctor and medical director of the Texas Cannabis Clinic, said he did not join the program until 2019, when qualifying conditions expanded beyond intractable epilepsy to include terminal cancer.
Brimberry also said provider hesitation can reflect practical barriers, including registering patients in yet another electronic health system portal and a lack of education about the medicine. He said that he believes no health field has taken the lead on prescribing medical cannabis, leaving providers with specific interest to advocate for it rather than wider medical training.
Against that backdrop, the report also connected Texas’ expansion to federal action. It said that in December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite the reclassification of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, placing it alongside other substances in that schedule such as ketamine and some steroids. The report said the rescheduling would not make recreational marijuana legal nationwide, but would change how marijuana is regulated and could remove barriers to research and reduce the industry’s tax burden, while improving access to banking services.
Singletary said the “thawing” of capital markets, better banking and better relationships with the IRS could free up capital for investment, create new products and drive down costs. Richardson said the federal government recognizing medical benefits is about 10 years behind the times, and he said denying medical benefits no longer makes sense. The report also quoted distributors viewing Texas’ expansion—led by Republican lawmakers—as a model for other southern states and said Texas’ size and economic infrastructure could position it as a national hub for medical marijuana.
This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.