Texas Marijuana Seekers Making A Boom Town In New Mexico

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• Legalized Marijuana in New Mexico is enticing Texas residents to head for their borders.
• New dispensaries are continuing to open in Sunland Park, New Mexico to keep up with demand.
• The town of just 17,000 people in New Mexico has over 16 cannabis dispensaries.

The small town of Sunland Park has become the benefactor of a marijuana tourism boom. Just a short drive from El Paso, Texas, this New Mexico down has little to offer if you don't count their 16 dispensaries.

According to The New York Times cars with Texas plates flood the little town daily. So many that some cannabis shops have a special Texas Tuesday promotion where Texas residents with valid IDs get 20% off all products.

This isn't the first time in the U.S. that things like this have happened.  Colorado was one of the first states to legalize marijuana, and they had tons of traffic from New Mexico to their dispensaries.

More States Legalizing Marijuana Around Texas 

Now that New Mexico has legalized, the small Colorado border towns that once had tons of dispensaries have had to scale back.

Texas and Louisiana have made moves to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, but neither has a clear path to legalization anytime soon. Almost half of the U.S. has made cannabis legal, and 38 states have made it legal for medical use.

The 2018 Farm Bill took hemp off the controlled substance list in Texas. They were hoping for more businesses farming hemp used for fabric and other staples.

What they got is a bunch of extracts of the hemp plant that are intoxicating, being sold all over the state. Texas still has a long way to go to get its relationship with hemp and marijuana solved.