At the start of this year’s legislative session, House Leadership formed the Medical Cannabis Working Group, an 11 member panel chaired by Rep. Allen Peake. Although the panel only met twice, first on February 1st, then again on the 8th, they agreed unanimously to add four “improvement recommendations” to the bill, as they were a “working group” with no authority to actually make amendments to the bill, however Rep. Peake stated that as the author of the original bill, he could make such changes before passing the bill to the Judicary non-civil committee for debate on the merits of the bill.
The four improvements to the bill included:
Adding reciprocity to other state’s medical cannabis card holders.
Adding a secondary definition to intractable pain for which the only alternative is opiod/opiate medications.
Adding a requirement for current and future medical cannabis card holders to self-report the effects of medical cannabis use so as to relieve the physicians’ reporting burden.
Adding eligibility to posses a medical cannabis card for those in hospice care.
Although it seemed as if autism spectrum disorder, intractable pain, HIV, Alzheimer’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder were added to the qualifying conditions, we won’t be sure until we see the bill that goes to the Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.
Below are the links to the videos from the hearings. The highlight from the last three years of medical cannabis testimony comes in the second video in the form of a Board Certified member of the American Academy of Pediatricians detailing the positive effects of cannabis on her family.
February 1st Hearing and Testimony
February 8th Hearing and Testimony