Medical Marijuana Update

A quiet week on the medical marijuana front, but there was action in a couple of state capitals.

Delaware Lawmakers Send Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill to Governor. After a final floor vote in the Senate, lawmakers have sent a medical marijuana expansion bill, House Bill 285, to the desk of Gov. John Carney (D).

The bill would allow doctors to issue medical marijuana recommendations to any patient who could benefit from it whether or not they suffer from a state-specified qualifying condition. It would also allow people 65 and older to self-certify for medical marijuana without a doctor's recommendation.

"These changes will allow healthcare providers to make sound decisions about which treatments best fit their patients, and make those treatments more readily accessible to people who need them the most," said bill sponsor Sen. Kyra Hoffner (D).

Kansas

Kansas Lawmakers Kill Medical Marijuana Pilot Program. The Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee moved on a voice vote to table until next January a bill that would have set up a pilot program for medical marijuana, Senate Bill 555. The vote effectively kills the bill for this session.

After several years of failed attempts to pass a standard medical marijuana bill, backers hoped they could at least get the pilot program passed, but even that was too much for the rock-ribbed Republicans of the Sunflower State.

"Our goal is to provide relief for patients, while also balancing the concerns of legislators and conservative Kansans," Sam Jones, COO of Kansas Natural Remedies, which helped draft the legislation, said during a January hearing."By being one of the last states to implement this, I think we've learned from other states," he said. "We’ve tailored this bill to address the things that other states have gotten wrong and to address the things that they may have gotten right. This is a limited bill. This is supposed to be a pilot program. This is a proof of concept for medical cannabis to give proof that medical cannabis isn’t going to cause the end of society."

But the usual suspects opposed any move toward medical marijuana: "I'm very concerned by some of the trends and the data that we’ve seen as we look around the country at other states that have legalized," said Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) Director Tony Mattivi, arguing that state-level reform is associated with increased rates of opioid overdoses. He also claimed that allowing the pilot program would open the door to organized crime.