Is NC’s medical marijuana bill dead? A sponsor says no, but opponents are celebrating
On the first day of this year’s legislative session, powerful Republican lawmaker Bill Rabon filed a bill that would legalize medical marijuana.
It wasn’t the first time he had filed such legislation, and the timing intimated its importance for him.
But despite Rabon’s efforts, including sharing publicly his experience with using marijuana illegally while undergoing chemotherapy to treat his cancer, the bill’s future is uncertain.
On Friday, an anti-cannabis organization lauded lawmakers for not passing the bill, saying the state had “dodged a bullet from the pot lobby.”
But Democratic Sen. Paul Lowe, another main sponsor of the legalization bill, said “by no means” is the bill “dead.”
Rocky road to medical marijuana legalization
The “Compassionate Care Act,” which would legalize medical, but not recreational marijuana, passed the Senate in March with bipartisan support but languished for three months in the House. The bill was heard in a committee in late May, but has not moved forward.
Rabon, who chairs the powerful Senate Rules Committee, in late June tried a maneuver tying passage of a largely technical House bill to medical marijuana legalization. The Senate approved this amended technical bill and tossed it back to the House, where it remains.
In late June prior to Rabon’s maneuver, House Speaker Tim Moore, asked about the status of the medical marijuana bill in the House, told reporters he did not think it had been “determined at this point whether that bill will come up for a vote, but I continue to have the position that any bill that’s going to come up for (a) vote must have a majority of Republicans who are going to vote for that bill on the House (floor).”
“So until I see that that’s where a majority of our caucus is, it will not” come up, he said.
‘I think they’re gonna come around’
Lowe, asked Friday about Moore’s comments on consensus, said he feels “pretty confident we’ll get something done.”
Lowe said conversations with Moore and other members of his leadership team are “ongoing,” making him feel “pretty good about it.”
“I think there are some members of his caucus that are reevaluating things and looking at it, and I think they’re gonna come around,” he said, not citing specific lawmakers. Sharing names “would kill what I’m trying to do,” he said.
Asked if he thought the bill would pass this session, Lowe said, “some bills take a while … it’s a process and sometimes, sometimes it’s a slow process.”
“If we don’t finish it in the long session, we’ll deal with it in the short session” in 2024, he said. “I feel pretty confident about it.”
The N&O could not reach Rabon or Republican Sen. Michael Lee, another main bill sponsor.
Claiming victory
The Smart Approaches to Marijuana chapter in North Carolina praised state lawmakers Friday for the failure of medical marijuana to advance this session.
Luke Niforatos, executive vice president of Smart Approaches, said in the news release: “Marijuana isn’t medicine. It’s not approved to treat any illness. So-called medical marijuana is the industry’s way of getting a foothold in a state that they can then use to create an open THC drug market.”
SAM was started in 2013 by former Democratic Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy in response to the 2012 marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington State. The North Carolina chapter’s coalition partners include the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition and the North Carolina Troopers Association.
“Those North Carolina legislators who had the courage to listen to doctors, parents, addiction specialists and law enforcement saw through this ruse (and) should be commended. As we’ve seen in states across the country who are beginning to recognize the lies of the pot industry, it’s not easy to do the right thing for public health in the face of this powerful lobby,” Niforatos said.
“While the fight against the pot industry isn’t over in North Carolina, communities across the state have dodged a bullet from the pot lobby for now thanks to political courage and not a small measure of common sense,” he wrote.
In a phone interview with The N&O, Niforatos said the group believed the bill to be dead “based on just several statements from a number of the members of Republican leadership, and just kind of the way that discussions have been going over the last month.”
Last year, a nearly identical bill passed the Senate but died in the House, after not being allowed a vote.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency, research on cannabis and its derivatives shows that it may be helpful in treating certain rare forms of “epilepsy, nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy, and loss of appetite and weight loss associated with HIV/AIDS.”
Evidence also suggests, per the NIH, modest benefits for chronic pain and multiple sclerosis symptoms. The NIH also notes that cannabis use is linked to higher risk of motor vehicle crashes and that some people who use cannabis develop cannabis use disorder, which has symptoms such as withdrawal and lack of control, among other negative side effects, as previously reported by The N&O.
This story was originally published July 7, 2023 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Is NC’s medical marijuana bill dead? A sponsor says no, but opponents are celebrating."
