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A Republican South Carolina state senator says that “medical marijuana is now legal” in the state following the Trump administration’s move to enact federal rescheduling—but a GOP congressman who is running to be the next governor says he has a “problem with marijuana,” calling it a “gateway drug.”
State Sen. Tom Davis (R), who has sponsored bills to legalize medical cannabis over a number of sessions, said that under a little-known state law he believes was triggered by federal rescheduling, “we have just become the 41st state that has a legally authorized medical marijuana program.”
“Medical marijuana is now legal in South Carolina,” he told Charleston City Paper.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who is running in next month’s primary for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, has concerns about cannabis.
“From day one, medicinal cannabis never ends up like that, [and] always ends up opening it up to everybody,” he told Marijuana Moment in an interview last week. “I’ve got a problem with that. It’s a gateway drug, and there other options other than marijuana for veterans or anybody who needs it for that matter.”
But regardless of Norman’s opposition, some patients in South Carolina may soon be able to get legal medical marijuana access under state law, thanks to the Trump administration’s action to remove medical cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
An existing state law says that “if a substance is added, deleted, or rescheduled as a controlled substance pursuant to federal law or regulation,” officials then have 30 days to reschedule the drug in the “appropriate schedule” under state law.
A separate law, the South Carolina Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act, passed in 1980, sets up a program through which certain patients could obtain medical cannabis “through whatever means” the state health commissioner “deems most appropriate consistent with federal law.”
Current Gov. Henry McMaster’s (R) office confirmed to local media that South Carolina law will “require the State to mirror the new federal order” on marijuana rescheduling. And the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) said that officials are “aware of the proposed rescheduling of medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act” and are “assessing the impacts to DPH and the state of South Carolina.”
Davis, the GOP state senator who has sponsored reform bills, told the City Paper that “Dr. [Edward] Simmer, as the DPH director, is in charge — he ‘shall’ provide that marijuana to those patients” under the law.
He added that “the legislature, quite frankly, has been derelict in its duty” in failing to enact his comprehensive medical cannabis legalization proposal, which has twice passed the Senate but continually stalled in the House of Representatives.
The senator said the measure would “put some safeguards in place to allow doctors to provide their patients with this product” beyond the scope of the limited access that is contemplated by the current state law triggered by federal rescheduling.
“My position has always been that this is a potentially dangerous substance,” Davis said. “We need to regulate it. We need to have physicians authorizing it. We need to have pharmacists dispensing it with proper labeling. And all that’s missing now.”
He also suggested that state officials could face litigation over any failure to take steps to provide legal medical marijuana access in line with current law.
“I’m not encouraging this, but I expect there will be some legal actions filed by individuals who want to access marijuana for medicinal purposes,” the senator said. “And they’re going to compel, or attempt to compel, DPH to discharge the duty it has been statutorily directed to do.”
“Doing nothing is a choice,” he said. “And doing nothing has consequences.”
Norman, the congressman who is running for governor, separately praised President Donald Trump’s recent executive order focused on accelerating therapeutic access to psychedelics.
“For the veteran who’s having problems and the veterans dealing with PTSD, that’s a good thing,” he told Marijuana Moment.
Last year, South Carolina’s current governor said there’s a “compelling” case to be made for legalizing medical marijuana in the state, despite reservations from law enforcement.
McMaster said at the time that he thinks supporters of the reform have a “very compelling situation,” despite the fact that “law enforcement, almost end-to-end, still have grave concerns.”
“I think what we need to do is study it very carefully, get as much information as we can and try to do the right thing,” he said.
The office of House Speaker Murrell Smith (R) tempered expectations, however, referencing what he viewed as insufficient support within the GOP caucus to advance the reform through his chamber.
An earlier version of Davis’s cannabis measure passed the Senate in the 2024 session but was never taken up in the House. He filed a new version for the 2025 session, but it did not advance.
“It requires doctors in patient authorization, doctor supervision,” Davis said at the time. “It requires pharmacists to dispense it. It is a very conservative bill, because that’s what South Carolinians want.”
As introduced, the legislation would allow patients to access medical marijuana from “therapeutic cannabis pharmacies,” which would be licensed by the state Board of Pharmacy. Individuals would need to receive a doctor’s recommendation for the treatment of certain qualifying conditions, which include several specific ailments as well as terminal illnesses and chronic diseases where opioids are the standard of care.
Among the public, medical marijuana legalization enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support in the state, with a 2024 poll finding that 93 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of independents back the reform.
The state Senate passed an earlier version of the legislation in 2022, but it stalled in the opposite body over a procedural hiccup.
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When senators began debating the medical marijuana legislation in 2024, the body adopted an amendment that clarifies the bill does not require landlords or people who control property to allow vaporization of cannabis products.
As debate on the legislation continued, members clashed over whether the current version of the legislation contains major differences from an earlier iteration that the body passed in 2022.
Certain lawmakers have also raised concerns that medical cannabis legalization would lead to broader reform to allow adult-use marijuana, that it could put pharmacists with roles in dispensing cannabis in jeopardy and that federal law could preempt the state’s program, among other worries.
After Davis’s Senate-passed medical cannabis bill was blocked in the House in 2022, he tried another avenue for the reform proposal, but that similarly failed on procedural grounds.
The lawmaker has called the stance of his own party, particularly as it concerns medical marijuana, “an intellectually lazy position that doesn’t even try to present medical facts as they currently exist.”
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
Tom Angell is the editor of Marijuana Moment. A 25-year veteran in the cannabis and drug law reform movement, he covers the policy, politics, science and culture of marijuana, psychedelics and other substances. He previously reported for Forbes, Marijuana.com and MassRoots, and was given the Hunter S. Thompson Media Award by NORML and has been named Journalist of the Year by Americans for Safe Access. As an activist, Tom founded the nonprofit Marijuana Majority and handled media relations, campaigns and lobbying for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
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