RALEIGH, N.C. — Senate Republicans, trying to revive medical marijuana legalization in the final weeks of session, appeared to send a message to their counterparts in the House this week: take up our bill, if you want us to take up yours.
But it may have backfired for at least one member of the House GOP.
Rep. Mike Clampitt, who has been supportive of the bill in the past, told The News & Observer on Thursday he’s now solidly against it, after the Senate voted a day earlier to make unrelated legislation the House had sent over contingent on the passage of the medical marijuana bill.
Clampitt, who is serving his third term in the House and represents Jackson, Swain and Transylvania counties, told The N&O he was “appalled” by the maneuver the Senate made, trying to force the House to take action on the Senate bill by tying it up with one of the House’s bills.
“It’s been very divisive in the House, and has been a very contentious topic,” Clampitt said of the effort to legalize medical marijuana. “And then for the Senate to minimize all of that, and to make a joke out of it, it’s very embarrassing to me for our General Assembly.”
The Senate passed its medical marijuana bill back in early March, sending it over to the House, where it has been stuck ever since.
During Wednesday’s session, the Senate took up an amendment to House Bill 75 offered by Sen. Bill Rabon, one of the cannabis bill’s primary sponsors, and the chair of the Senate Rules Committee, who decides which bills get to move forward in the upper chamber.
The amendment was concise. It simply stated that HB 75 would only go into effect if and when Senate Bill 3, the medical marijuana bill, became law.
After a few brief speeches, including one by Democratic Sen. Mike Woodard who called the move his “favorite amendment of the whole session,” prompting laughs from the rest of the chamber, the Senate approved Rabon’s amendment 36 to 8, giving it a strong, bipartisan endorsement that included the support of Senate leader Phil Berger.
Clampitt said senators trying to force a vote on the bill in the House was “pompous” and “self-centered,” and unlikely to help their cause of trying to get it passed.
“They want to play games, I think that’s very unfortunate for the citizens of North Carolina,” Clampitt said. “It doesn’t do anyone any good.”
House speaker says bill lacks enough GOP support
After the Senate sent HB 75 back to the House with Rabon’s amendment on Wednesday, House Speaker Tim Moore said that the reason medical marijuana remains stalled is because it still doesn’t have enough support from House Republicans to be brought up on the floor.
“Our rule is that a bill, to pass on the floor, must receive at least a majority of the members of the caucus on the House floor, and it’s just short of that right now, and that’s why it’s not being taken up,” Moore told reporters.
N.C. Sen. Bill Rabon shares his experience using marijuana illegally while undergoing chemotherapy to treat his cancer as Senate Bill 3, the NC Compassionate Care Act, is discussed during a House health committee meeting in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Sen. Michael Lee stands to the left.
N.C. Sen. Bill Rabon shares his experience using marijuana illegally while undergoing chemotherapy to treat his cancer as Senate Bill 3, the NC Compassionate Care Act, is discussed during a House health committee meeting in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Sen. Michael Lee stands to the left. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
In late May, more than three months after the bill cleared the Senate, it was taken up by the House Health Committee for discussion only, not for a vote.
Rabon, a cancer survivor, revealed that he used marijuana at the direction of his oncologist when he was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer more than 20 years ago. He said he credits the drug as “the only reason I’m alive today,” and told committee members there were tens of thousands of North Carolinians who stood to benefit.
The bill would allow marijuana use for people who suffer from certain ailments including cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others.
A previous version of the bill passed the Senate last year, but didn’t move forward in the House.
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