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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Senate committee voices concerns over expansive low-THC medical cannabis House bill
AUSTIN (Nexstar) – On Monday morning, a Texas House bill that addresses access to low-THC medical cannabis raised some concerns in the Senate State Affairs Committee. House Bill 46 aims to increase the number of medical cannabis providers, expand patient eligibility and allow patients to use inhalers to receive the medication. Bill sponsor Senator Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, acknowledged the concerns that have been raised about the legislation. At Monday's hearing, Perry described the bill as 'definitely a work in progress.' 'Some of the things in it are a good step in the right direction, some of the things that are in it are kind of a backwards look, and some of the things in it could open up the door for unintended consequences,' said Perry during the hearing. 'You said opens the door. I think it puts a C4 blast on it,' said State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury. Texas House backs bill to expand access to low-THC medical cannabis Perry authored Senate Bill 1505, which is listed as the Senate companion bill to HB 46. Both bills work to expand Texas' Compassionate Use Program (CUP), a program that has grown since 2015 to provide low-THC cannabis to those with certain medical conditions. Currently, all three licensed Texas dispensaries that distribute medical cannabis prescriptions are located in Austin and must store their inventory there. To serve patients in other cities or rural areas, the dispensaries have to drive the medication out after an order is placed. If the patient isn't available to receive the prescription, the dispensary has to return the order to Austin, making the process slow and inefficient for both sides. Compared to its Senate companion, House Bill 46 is more expansive in medical cannabis access. While the Senate bill would increase the amount of licensed dispensaries to no more than six, the House bill allows for 11 licenses. The Senate version also defines 'low-THC cannabis' as containing no more than five milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinols per dose, while the House sets the maximum dosage at 20 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinols. '1505 and this bill both wants to expand access in a responsible way to where you're not driving a product from Austin to Lubbock only to have that person not on the recipient end of it, to have to drive back—That is a legitimate, prescribed-by-physician affliction named in statute that could benefit,' Perry told the committee. The head of one of Texas' three licensed dispensaries, Texas Original Compassionate Cultivation, testified at the hearing. CEO Nico Richardson said he is 'supportive of the conversation between 1505 and 46.' He said the bills help fix the system by adding accessibility through satellite locations, allowing for pulmonary inhalation, and lowering the cost of the medicine. 'This is a poison': Texas Senate passes bill that would ban THC products from being sold Perry said the Senate will consider a committee substitute, which is still being drafted, for HB 46. Tuesday's vote on Senate Bill 3 in the House will likely shape what is in that substitute legislation. SB 3 places strict regulations on the sale of consumable hemp in Texas, including new fees and criminal offenses. 'Senate Bill 3 is up tomorrow in the House, so we'll see where that lands and see where this all fits together,' Perry said. 'It's all kind of a package deal.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Texas Lottery and billions in school funding in limbo as deadline nears at Capitol
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways State Sen. Bob Hall laid out a bill in a Senate State Affairs Committee hearing on Monday with one purpose: ending the Texas Lottery. In a lengthy speech, the Edgewood Republican summarized all the problems at the Texas Lottery Commission that culminated in the agency allowing ticket sales he called illegal to occur. The only solution, Hall said, would be to abolish the game entirely. 'It's definitely the nuclear option, but what you have described is incredibly disturbing,' Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, said to Hall during the hearing. With less than 30 days left in the session, lawmakers must pass legislation to either continue or end the lottery. At stake is $2 billion in public school funding and millions of dollars to veterans' programs it provides yearly. Passing Senate Bill 1988 is not the only way the lottery could ultimately be abolished. Lawmakers must act on two key pieces of legislation to keep the lottery going past Sept. 1. First, lawmakers must return the lottery commission's funding in the next biennial state budget proposal after a House amendment removed it entirely. Second, the Legislature must pass one of two 'sunset' bills in each chamber. The lottery commission is under review by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, a legislative body that reviews state agencies every 12 years. The agency automatically closes if lawmakers do not renew it. Neither of the two sunset bills — House Bill 1505 and Senate Bill 2402 — have been heard by their assigned committees. SB 1988 was also left pending in committee. Much of the criticism of the Texas Lottery from Hall and others can be traced to lottery couriers, services that sell lottery tickets online. Couriers allow customers to play the lottery digitally by printing physical tickets at a licensed retail store their company owns and sending scanned photos of tickets to customers. Hall and others have said rules the lottery commission approved over the years allowed couriers to operate in Texas contrary to state law and enabled illegal sales, including to minors and out-of-state customers. 'If the lottery commission were to adopt an official motto today, it would have to include unique words like lie, cheat, steal, mislead and cover-up,' Hall said during the hearing on SB 1988. 'This bill is intended to send a strong message to not just the lottery commission, but to all state agencies that have assumed authority not given to them by the Legislature.' A $2 billion gamble While most of the lottery's revenue goes to prize payouts, a little under 24% of the lottery's $8 billion in annual sales goes to Texas public schools, according to the lottery commission. That funding supplants, but does not supplement, schools' budget, said Chandra Villanueva, director of policy and advocacy for progressive nonprofit Every Texan. The state budget for schools comes from several different funds, including the lottery. That means the game's abolition would not immediately decrease actual money schools receive, but it would create a gap in the state's budget. 'If we got rid of the lottery, it wouldn't impact schools at all, just like how if we go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets today, it wouldn't create more funding for schools,' Villanueva said. 'It's formula driven, and the state would just have to make it up through general revenue.' A committee made up of members of the House and Senate will meet to hash out the final details of the budget. If the lottery is not going to provide the $2 billion, the committee must make up the shortfall. The harm to schools might still come, Villanueva said, depending on where lawmakers choose to pull the money from. House Bill 2, a school funding increase that passed out of the House in April, seeks to add $8 billion to public education by giving raises to teachers, increasing school districts' money per student and more. The House bill is awaiting Senate action, and Villanueva said some of the proposals in the bill could get cut to make up for a potential absence of lottery money. 'Unfortunately, because they've been so hesitant around funding public education, it would probably come out of any dollars that are set aside for formula increases that we're seeing in HB 2,' Villanueva said. For Hall, the price of removing the corruption of the lottery commission is worth the trouble of finding money elsewhere in the budget to cover the losses. 'We keep billions of dollars around here like you or I would spend nickels and dimes, so it's not that significant,' Hall said. That $2 billion to schools, while valuable, represents only a small fraction of public education funding in the state — about three days' worth of education, Hall said. Although opponents of the lottery like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have been vocal, supporters have been less forthcoming. Hall said he's heard from some fellow legislators who are concerned about the funding gaps, but not vehemently so. 'I don't find anybody anxious to defend the lottery and jump up for it,' Hall said in a recent interview with The Texas Tribune. Supporters of the lottery's continuation, like Rep. Josey Garcia, said ongoing support for the game won't come without scrutiny. The San Antonio representative was one of a few Democrats in the House with amendments to the budget that would have pulled money away from the lottery to other programs, but said she values what the game offers Texans. 'If we know that there's potential mishandling, then there needs to be a full review and you need to rehire, because that one thing that we can't accept from our government is the mishandling of any resources,' Garcia said. Despite her initial eyeing of the lottery's funding for other purposes, Garcia said she still believes the game can be an honest source of revenue for the lottery also provides roughly $26 million a year to the Texas Veterans Commission Fund for Veterans' Assistance, which provides grants for veteran services. Garcia, who is a veteran, said the programs the lottery supports for veterans deserves the same level of care she had while serving. Almost all of the lottery commission's funding comes from ticket revenue, which is stored in a separate account. If the sunset bills are not passed, the funds in the account — roughly $430 million, according to the Texas Comptroller's office — would be placed back in the state's general revenue in 2026. 'I was a logistician, and we had to account for our budget to the penny, and I just can't imagine that we wouldn't do the same for these programs,' Garcia said. Standoff on courier regulations Two major jackpot wins are at the heart of concerns involving couriers and lawmakers' scrutiny of the services' unclear ability to operate under state law. In April 2023, a $95 million jackpot was won after four retailers, some of whom were partnered with couriers, printed 99% of the 25.8 million possible ticket combinations. Those orders weren't taken over the phone, but ticket-printing terminals were requested from the lottery commission by a lottery courier, to complete the 'bulk purchase.' Another $83.5 million jackpot was won by an anonymous woman who bought the winning ticket in February on an app operated by the courier Jackpocket. Currently, state law prohibits selling lottery tickets by 'telephone,' which some lawmakers, including Hall and Patrick, have said should apply to couriers' website and app sales., Courier executives have said the law only applies to phone call orders. Both of those jackpots have prompted state investigations from Attorney General Ken Paxton's office and the Texas Rangers, a division of the Department of Public Safety. Couriers have operated in the state for years as lottery commission officials claimed they could not regulate the services. That changed in February, when the lottery commission abruptly announced in late April it would ban couriers from operating. One courier, sued the commission over the rule and was granted a temporary restraining order by a Travis County district judge on Friday. In granting the restraining order, which allows to continue operating in Texas, the judge wrote there was 'substantial likelihood' that claims would prevail in the suit. Patrick named banning couriers from operating as one of his legislative priorities, and a bill being heard in the House on Tuesday seeks to go further than the lottery commission's restrictions. Senate Bill 28, authored by Hall, would explicitly block online sales and criminalize lottery couriers, creating a misdemeanor for purchasing and selling the tickets online. Another bill being heard during the same hearing does just the opposite: House Bill 3201 would allow lottery couriers to be licensed by the state to sell tickets online, but only after going through background checks and creating guardrails to prevent illegal purchases. Authored by Rep. John Bucy III, D-Austin, the bill also would require that couriers submit to yearly financial audits reviewing their sales. In a statement to the Tribune after the lottery commission passed its courier ban, Bucy said the agency is overstepping by choosing to ban the services while legislators are discussing how they want to act on couriers. 'It's outrageous that the Texas Lottery Commission — an unelected body — would take sweeping action like this in the middle of the legislative session, especially after claiming for years they had no authority to regulate these services,' Bucy said. Disclosure: Every Texan and Texas Veterans Commission have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Will Florida Teens With Sexually Transmitted Diseases Have To Tell Their Parents Before They Can Get Treatment?
In an ideal world, teenagers would not be engaging in risky sexual activity and would not be catching sexually transmitted infections (STIs). But we do not live in an ideal world. And young people are often dumb. The best we can hope for is that when some young people make bad decisions, these will not result in dire or lifelong consequences. If, say, some 16-year-old has unprotected sex and catches chlamydia, we should hope that the teen will get treated—even if that means telling a parent what is going on. But, is this likely? Given an option between telling a parent they're sexually active and simply shutting up and hoping for the best, it doesn't seem unreasonable to worry that teens may choose the latter. That's why it's probably a good idea not to condition STI treatment on parental consent. You risk stopping young people from seeking testing and treatment in the first place. But Americans—especially in states like Florida and Texas—seem to be in the midst of a panic about parental approval. And it doesn't seem to hinge so much on stopping risky or dangerous behavior as giving parents ultimate control over all aspects of their children's lives, even when these children are adolescents or on the cusp of adulthood. We want parents to have to approve the books and ideas they're exposed to in school, the apps they can download, and the social media platforms they join. Now, Florida wants to require parental consent before a minor can be treated for an STI. Notably, no one seems to even pretend that this is about helping minors—some of whom surely have good reason not to tell their parents if they're sexually active and may refrain from treatment rather than doing so. No, proponents of the bill keep talking about parental rights. Of course, rights are important, especially when it comes to areas where the state is trying to substitute its judgment for that of parents. But children also have rights and should be granted increasing autonomy in exercising these rights as they approach adulthood. And consenting to sensitive but nonrisky medical treatment to stop dangerous complications and further spreading of disease seems like a prime area for allowing older minors some autonomy. Florida lawmakers do not see it this way, apparently. A pair of bills—House Bill 1505 and Senate Bill 1288—that would ban minors getting treated for STIs without parental consent "have cleared all of their committee stops in both chambers," the Florida Phoenix reports. If this becomes law, Florida would become the first state to deny minors the right to consent to STI services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The House version of the bill would also let parents opt kids of all ages out of taking not just mental health surveys or health screenings at school but any survey or questionnaire that may reveal things such as political beliefs, religious beliefs, "sexual behavior or attitudes," or "critical appraisals" of any family member. It would remove language allowing doctors to provide contraceptive services to minors without their parent's consent when the minor would, "in the opinion of the physician, suffer probably health hazards if such services are not provided." And it would remove language allowing minors to "voluntarily apply for and obtain substance abuse treatment" on their own. The bill would furthermore remove language allowing doctors to treat minors "seeking outpatient crisis intervention services" without parental consent. And it would repeal a section of Florida code that says minors ages 13 or above who are experiencing "emotional crisis" can "request, consent to, and receive mental health diagnostic and evaluative services" or "outpatient crisis intervention services including individual psychotherapy, group therapy, counseling, or other forms of verbal therapy provided by a licensed mental health professional." Again, one hopes kids would be able to talk to their parents about mental health problems or substance abuse issues, and that parents would respond by helping them get treatment and not with extreme forms of punishment. But in reality, not all parents are going to respond well in such situations. And we should hope that kids might seek help even when they don't want to get a parent involved or when a parent has refused to let them seek outside help. This isn't all bad—the bits about allowing parents to opt kids out of health screenings and various surveys could stop schools from intruding in things they have no business intruding in. After all, students themselves probably are not allowed to opt out of such screenings and surveys, so at least giving their parents that option is good. And it's not like a kid with trouble at home couldn't talk to teachers or administrators without the survey. (Though I can also see enforcement of this plank going too far and being used to try and limit classroom discussions or assignments in weird ways, as Florida seems wont to do.) There's also a bit about using biofeedback devices on kids outside of a health care facility. To the extent that this is a thing that's actually happening or could happen, requiring parental consent doesn't seem like a bad idea here. But overall, the Florida bills seem like yet another sign of lawmakers and advocates taking parental rights too far. We're moving beyond protecting parents from unfair and unwarranted governmental incursions on their authority and starting to use the phrase to deny even basic bodily autonomy and decision making rights to anyone under 18. When Facebook considered Dropbox to be its competition. A look at the government's antitrust trial against Facebook parent company Meta shows how silly authorities' obsession with stopping tech "monopolies" is. The trial has been a tour de force through the rapidly shifting social media and app landscape of the past 15 years—and the sort of dynamism that renders it absurd to think we need federal prosecutors to stop technology from staying static. (I delved into this idea at length in a 2023 Reason cover story, "Competition, Not Antitrust, Is Humbling the Tech Giants"). "The testimony has underscored the government's steep challenge in bringing a case, Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, against a fast-moving modern tech giant," notes The New York Times: By the time the five-year-old lawsuit reached trial last week, Silicon Valley had moved on from battling over social networking to battling over artificial intelligence, quantum computing and driverless cars — so much so that it was sometimes hard to relate to what was discussed in court. Social media has evolved, too. At the trial, government lawyers have tried to define Meta's social networking market as one that is about connecting with friends and family. That's because more than a decade ago, Facebook had a distinct advantage with its "friend graph," which is the group of friends, family and personal connections a user is linked with on the social network. That graph made it more difficult for users to pack up and easily go elsewhere. But a decade is a long time in internet years, and somewhere along the way, social media became less about social and more about media. People now post fewer status updates and photos. Scrolling through apps is less about sharing with friends and more about letting strangers entertain you. Essentially, the government is bringing a case against a company that no longer exists for dominating a tech landscape that no longer exists. The Gen Z lifestyle subsidy? "In the 2010s, Millennials got cheap Ubers. Today's young people are getting free SuperGrok," notes The Atlantic. "It's reminiscent of the 2010s, when a generation of start-ups fought to win users over by offering cheap access to their services." Babies by Trump? The White House is reportedly considering menstrual education as one way to boost U.S. fertility rates. European Union cracks down on U.S. tech companies. "The European Commission issued the first fines under its Digital Markets Act on Wednesday, slapping tech giants Apple and Meta with penalties for breaching the EU's new digital rulebook," reports Politico. "Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation's rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its 'pay or consent' advertising model, which requires that European Union users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram." The post Will Florida Teens With Sexually Transmitted Diseases Have To Tell Their Parents Before They Can Get Treatment? appeared first on
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill offers immunity from conflict crimes to North Dakota lawmakers if they follow ethics rules
House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, testifies in support of a bill during a committee hearing on Jan. 31, 2025. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) A bill debated Friday would give North Dakota lawmakers immunity from conflict-of-interest crimes if they disclose potential conflicts and follow legislative ethics rules. House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, said he sponsored House Bill 1505 to give citizen lawmakers clarity on how to navigate potential conflicts when voting on bills. Meanwhile, a separate bill that seeks to overhaul how the North Dakota's Ethics Commission handles complaints encountered opposition from the state Attorney General's Office on Friday. Voters created an ethics commission in North Dakota. Then the Legislature limited its power. Lefor's proposal provides immunity to lawmakers if they disclose conflicts and follow rules such as those adopted by the House in December. For example, the rules require members to disclose sufficient detail about a conflict so other lawmakers can decide whether to allow them to vote. The rules also allow a member to abstain from voting and provide a grace period so lawmakers can disclose conflicts after voting on a bill. It's unclear what impact the bill would have on the Senate, which has not yet adopted similar conflict-of-interest rules. The bill also allows lawmakers who act following written guidance of the Ethics Commission to use that as a defense if they are prosecuted for voting on a bill. Emily Thompson, legal division director for Legislative Council, outlined some of the language changes on potential conflicts. Instead of saying lawmakers with a 'direct, substantial' benefit from a bill have a potential conflict, lawmakers with a 'unique' interest in a bill have a potential conflict. As an example, she said changes to property taxes may directly benefit a lawmaker, but because the benefit is not unique to an individual lawmaker, there would not be a conflict. Conflict-of-interest issues were elevated last year when Rep. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck, was convicted of a misdemeanor crime related to votes he submitted on the House floor. Dockter was the part-owner of a building with space being leased by two agencies. Dockter voted on budget bills that included money for those leases. McLean County State's Attorney Ladd Erickson, the prosecutor in the Dockter case, submitted written testimony in support of the bill. He said the bill would not have changed the outcome of that case. Erickson said the bill would provide lawmakers assurance that they won't be in legal jeopardy if they disclose conflicts and follow the Legislature's conflict rules. Rep. Lori VanWinkle, R-Minot, said she was struggling to understand how the bill would reduce corruption if it offers lawmakers immunity. Thompson said the bill does not grant lawmakers immunity from taking a bribe or other bad act, just the official act of voting on a bill. Ethics Commission Executive Director Rebecca Binstock filed written testimony against the bill, but said amendments Lefor introduced Friday addressed most of the concerns. The House Government and Veterans Committee did not act on the bill or on another bill related to the Ethics Commission, House Bill 1360. The North Dakota Ethics Commission, created by voters in 2018, has received 84 complaints since it was established. An investigation by the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica published earlier this month showed that the commission has yet to substantiate a single complaint. In addition, the commission often receives information about potential ethical issues it can't investigate unless a formal complaint is filed. Binstock explained for the committee how the bill seeks to streamline the Ethics Commision process and would alter how it handles complaints. Changes include eliminating the word 'complaint' and replacing it with the term 'relevant information.' Binstock said one of the biggest changes is that it would allow legislators implicated with misconduct to address the situation publicly, rather than wait for the end of a sometimes lengthy review. It also allows some cases to be dismissed or dealt with more quickly. But Deputy Attorney General Claire Ness testified against the bill, saying it strips away some protections for those accused, gives the Ethics Commission too much leeway in rulemaking and takes away enforcement authority from the Legislature. Rep. Austen Schauer, R-West Fargo, chair of the House Government and Veterans Committee, expressed frustration after the testimony from Ness. 'We're here … going through this bill for an hour, and then the Attorney General's Office comes in and basically blows it up,' Schauer said. Ness said her office provided input to the Ethics Commission and lawmakers on both bills, and she testified in support of the immunity bill. 'It is our duty to explain what our concerns are,' Ness said. 'We are in absolutely no way trying to blow anything up.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
