Marijuana

Sorry about that headline. It’s 4/20, the unofficial national marijuana holiday when America celebrates the happy wonders of weed. It should be cheerier, right? Weed is potent and plentiful. Yay! But this is Texas, where it’s still illegal. Boo! And it will probably remain illegal until the cows come home,…

What are the most vital questions concerning the marijuana industry today?  No, not “Got any?” or “Hey, can you hook me up with your guy?” The truth is the marijuana industry is booming, medical use of marijuana is expanding and entrepreneurs are entrepreneuring, and there’s a whole world of valuable weed…

State health inspectors could confiscate food products that say they contain CBD oil under new procedures proposed by the Texas Department of State Health Services, raising howls from medical marijuana supporters and threatening to stifle a growing number of shops peddling products with the oil. They’ve popped up all over…

Chronic pain patients and their doctors have been sharing their worries with the Observer since the Trump administration announced it was escalating the war on opioids. Some have appeared in articles, more in front of a judge. Some have taken to the streets to secure their needed medication for unbearable pain, paying…

“CBD Kratom” reads the large sign over Dafna Reva’s storefront on Central Expressway’s frontage road. Just south of trendy Knox Street, it sits beside a Marble Slab Creamery, two doors down from a Potbelly Sandwich Shop and around the corner from an Apple store and Kate Spade shop. “You can’t…

Dr. Daniel Maynard was the first red flag in Dallas. Called by some a “kindhearted doctor,” he handed out cash to hungry people and pills to chronic pain sufferers. The Associated Press wrote in a June 2003 story that the 57-year-old doctor was “an institution in a part of town where…

It’s something that feels like both a really big step and a tiny one at the same time: On Thursday, Compassionate Cultivation will open Texas’ first licensed cannabis oil dispensary just outside of Austin in Manchaca. Don’t plan on skipping work. Don’t bother gassing up the car. The people who…

Josh Johnson had never seen pot trees before. They towered 14 or 15 feet in the air, their limbs blooming with marijuana flowers in the sunlight like rows of cornstalks. They weren’t nearly as tall as the Douglas firs covering the Pacific Northwest mountains nearby, but these plants would produce…

Sometime next month, Compassionate Cultivation, one of three Texas companies licensed to grow cannabis under 2015’s Compassionate Use Act, is going to roll out its first batch of cannibidiol oil, the low-THC medicine allowed under the law to patients with intractable epilepsy. It will do so despite uncertainty about federal…

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Thursday announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time for Texas’ nascent medical cannabis industry. After years of detente during the Obama administration, Sessions rescinded the Cole memo, a Department of Justice directive that federal law enforcement not crack down on marijuana-related activity otherwise protected…

One of the biggest positive steps for marijuana reform in Texas in 2017 happened here in Dallas. On Dec. 1, the city began issuing citations, rather than making arrests, for possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana. Those busted are still subject to the same penalties as they were…

Dallas resident Penny Howard thought she would have longer with her 5-year-old daughter, Harper. Harper was born in April 2010 with a rare, life-threatening disorder called CDKL5 epilepsy. The girl died in January 2016, but her life and death are making an impact in the world of orphan diseases, the term for…

Travis Strickland has been fighting the war on drugs for more than a decade. He’s a sergeant in the Lufkin Police Department’s special services division, which includes the street crime and narcotics units. The job used to involve taking apart methamphetamine labs that sprouted like prickly pears around rural Texas…

Starting Dec. 1, no one busted in the city of Dallas for possessing 4 ounces or less of marijuana will be required to spend the night in jail. With a 4-1 vote Tuesday, the Dallas County Commissioners Court cleared the way for the policy to take effect. Instead, individuals cited for…

At the close of the 2017 legislative session, marijuana remains illegal to produce, possess, use or sell in Texas. While cities like Dallas have moved to implement cite-and-release policies, which allow police to send people holding marijuana home with a court summons, the state maintains its stiff penalties for drugs…

Rumors of young drug dealers pressuring classmates swirled in Oak Cliff schools after an 11-year-old student at Stockard Middle School killed himself last week. In response, DISD officials sent out a drug detection dog to middle schools. The dog’s first stop was March 20 at Stockard Middle School and there were no…

A 32-year-old mother of five kids faces a felony child endangerment charge for testing positive for marijuana use while breast-feeding. Erica Tucker says she was using cannabis to control her grand mal epileptic seizures after she could no longer afford her prescription drugs. If convicted she could face up to…