Big dreams for medical marijuana this session were mostly dashed.
Lawmakers put forth more than three dozen bills in both chambers aiming to expand access to marijuana. The vast majority of the bills, including every attempt to legalize recreational marijuana, died early in the session without discussion in their respective committees.
Only three bills, all originating in the House, made it out of their chamber to the other side of the Capitol. Two of those survived the Senate public health committee and await the governor’s signature.
Mississippians who use medical marijuana treatments will see a few changes to the state’s program come July, if Gov. Tate Reeves rubber-stamps the provisions on his desk.
Under current state law, patients are required to attend a follow-up appointment with the doctor who issued their medical marijuana certificate to evaluate its impact on their health. One of the House bills would eliminate that state-level requirement and leave the choice up to the doctor.
The same bill would get rid of the existing potency caps for cannabis oils and concentrates. The limit is set at 60% potency now.
On the House floor, Rep. Lee Yancey, R-Brandon, the bill’s sponsor, told lawmakers that removing the caps could mean that patients would consume less medical marijuana, because a smaller, stronger dose could have the same impact. The potency provision drew relatively little argument in either chamber.
The final change in Yancey’s medical cannabis bill would double the validity period of caregiver cards. Caregivers, those certified to buy cannabis at dispensaries, transport it and administer it to patients, have to renew their certifications every year.
The final medical marijuana bill to pass both chambers was dubbed the “Right to Try” act by Yancey. The bill, as Senate public health committee chair Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, explained in late February, allows people to apply to try medical marijuana.
Patients need to be diagnosed with one or more of the roughly two dozen qualifying conditions listed in Mississippi law before their doctor can enroll them in the state’s medical marijuana program. Those conditions are mostly terminal, including late-stage cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and ALS, but the list does include some non-fatal issues such as autism and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The list of conditions is long, Bryan said, but it doesn’t encompass all of the medical issues that could benefit from medical marijuana treatments. Yancey’s bill, he told the Senate committee, would allow patients and doctors to collaborate on an application for the program.
Doctors who think their patients could benefit from medical cannabis can petition state health officer Daniel Edney for special permission to participate in the program. They have to demonstrate that conventional treatments haven’t worked and explain why they believe that cannabis could be a solution.
If he approves, the patient can try it out for a year, at which point Edney reevaluates and determines whether it makes sense for the treatment to continue. Edney, who spoke in support of the bill at a March committee meeting, told legislators that the program was a win-win for patients and medical professionals.
Patients have newfound access to medical marijuana, which could be life-changing for pain management, he said, and doctors have another resource in their toolkit to improve patient outcomes. The “Right to Try” bill, he added, allows practitioners to recommend medical marijuana treatments without needing to register as a marijuana provider with the state health department.
Dozens of marijuana bills were shot down by legislators in the first few weeks of the session. All of the bills that aimed to tackle marijuana from the criminal justice side, including measures that would have made minor possession a civil offense rather than criminal, died early in the legislative process.
Medical marijuana bills fared slightly better among lawmakers. One piece of legislation, called the “Compassionate Access to Medical Cannabis Act” by its sponsor Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, made it past a few committee deadlines before dying in the Senate public health committee in March.
Felsher’s bill would have allowed terminally ill patients to consume marijuana in hospitals. The bill was modeled after a similar piece of legislation originating in California, and it would have restricted marijuana consumption to edible forms only.
The bill passed the House in a near-unanimous vote but faced a completely different audience when it crossed over to the Senate. Felsher presented his bill at a March 3 public health committee meeting, but senators argued that forcing hospitals to allow medical marijuana on their grounds would violate their autonomy.
Senators also discussed the potential negative interactions between marijuana and the drugs that terminally ill patients may be prescribed in their final months of life. Despite argument from some senators that drug interactions don’t typically matter very much for people who are about to die, the committee voted the measure down in early March.
Yancey’s main medical marijuana bill, which eliminates the follow-up appointment requirement and extends caregiver card validity, initially went much further. His original bill would have made caregiver cards valid for five years and patient cards valid for two years, both of which were cut down in Senate amendments.
When the amended bill made its way back to the House, lawmakers ultimately voted to concur with the changes. That bill, and the “Right to Try” act, are the only marijuana bills to make it through the legislative session this year.
Bea Anhuci is the state government reporter for the Clarion Ledger. She has covered proposed changes to the state’s medical marijuana program since the start of the year. Email her at banhuci@usatodayco.com.