Marijuana advocates are calling out the state of Texas for hypocrisy after a Chicago Sun Times report showing that the state has invested in the pot business.
The state’s Permanent School Fund Committee owns $822,000 worth of stock in publicly traded Innovative Industrial Properties, a company that leases land to marijuana-growing businesses in a dozen states.
Meanwhile, Texas has one of the country’s most-restrictive medical marijuana policies.
During the last legislative session, lawmakers expanded the state’s ultra-limited Compassionate Use Act to include diseases such as cancer and epilepsy. However, post-traumatic stress disorder isn’t among the conditions approved for legal marijuana use, angering some veterans. Advocates are also concerned about how few Texas doctors are authorized to approve the drug’s use.
“It’s very hypocritical for the Texas government to stand so much against cannabis, to hear that you are spending almost $1 million in taxpayer money into a fund that is going to have a majority of its revenue coming from the marijuana industry, it doesn’t sit well with us,” Robert Head of the group Texas Veterans for Medical Marijuana told Texas Public Radio in a recent report.
What’s more, school districts and the Texas Education Agency have a zero-tolerance policy for marijuana on campus, Jesse Williams of the Texas Cannabis Collective pointed out in an online statement.
“So, [state officials] support cannabis elsewhere, but write code against it here in Texas,” Williams said.
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This article appears in Aug 14-27, 2019.
