John Bogna
A company known as Knox Medical (KM) will soon be the first to legally sell medical marijuana in the state of Texas.
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According to ABC, the company already blazed a similar trail in Florida, where they operate a fully functional greenhouse to grow their medical marijuana.
You must have medical marijuana ID card OR
you’ll be asked to leave. Knox Medical is the first marijuana dispensary in Palm Beach County. pic.twitter.com/M9gBlq1b3H— Thomas Forester @CBS12 (@ForesterCBS12) November 14, 2017
Founded in 2015, KM reportedly came about when owner Bruce Knox combined his family’s plant Knox Nursery with Consortium Holdings.
Two years later, this past September, state officials approved his application to blown down in the Lone Star State.
The company is reportedly growing plants to be used for products developed in its recently-acquired facility in Schulenberg, Texas.
https://twitter.com/AyizeBurbz/status/913791842033991680
“I think this is the future of medicine and there are millions and millions of people who can benefit from this medicine,” Knox said in an interview regarding the decision to expand his company into Texas.
Per Texas’ Compassionate Use Act, only people with epilepsy failing to improve or respond to traditional, FDA-approved treatments will be able to purchase medical products derived from marijuana – about 150,000 people, according to legislators who successfully argued for the bill this past session.
RELATED: Is Texas’ “Compassionate Care” Marijuana Law Too Little, Too Late for Many Patients?
Texas still takes a very strict stance on recreational marijuana, though some counties, like Harris, Dallas and Bexar, are working to ease punishments to lessen, or, in best case as Houston’s operates, eliminate, jail time.
Knox said he is very careful about how he presents his company’s product, which is a known oil derived from marijuana plants extracted with very low levels of the psychoactive element THC found in the plant.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), THC is the reason marijuana remains a Schedule I drug – contraband with no federally-approved medical uses in the U.S.
Knox further emphasized the medical science and careful preparation behind the product coming to Texas in an effort to distinguish his company from the standard stigmas of smoking weed.
He said delivery is made unmarked vans by guards wearing body cameras to prevent the drugs from winding up in the wrong hands.
A number of people remain skeptical of the medicinal uses of the plant, but some science is showing otherwise:
Floridian Doctor Joseph Rosado, for instance, claims he’s seen cannabis oil help his patients with seizures.
“For a child that is having 200 to 300 seizures a day and drops down to two to three seizures a month, that’s better than a slam dunk,” he said in an interview with ABC.
While she may not qualify under the state’s newest marijuan law, Texan Kara Zartler’s argument for the benefits on pot is perhaps best viewed firsthand:
Not many in state doctors are currently eligible to be able to prescribe medicinal marijuana products, but, under the state’s Compassionate Use Act, once companies are stocked and ready to sell, prescriptions can be written by registered physicians.
Knox said he remains hopeful he will be able to start selling product in December.
RELATED: Texas Takes Baby Steps on the Path to Marijuana Reform
