COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Senate will start its long-awaited debate this week over a proposal that would legalize some forms of medical marijuana for people living with serious illnesses and conditions.
Senators struck a deal last year, making it reality last week, to give the legislation priority status more than seven years after the lead sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Tom Davis, first proposed legalizing medicinal cannabis.
The debate will mark the greatest push in South Carolina to legalize medicinal cannabis since the state voted to legalize cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive oil extracted from marijuana, in 2014.
Despite its recent fast-track treatment in the Senate — after about seven year’s worth of hearings — the move to legalize medical marijuana still faces strong opponents in South Carolina that stretch from a conservative faction of lawmakers to law enforcement who say the legislation could be abused and could lead users to more serious drugs.
Others point to the lack of approval from the federal government’s drug oversight agency, U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
But proponents argue there have been medical marijuana laws on the books across the country for years, and South Carolina should pass its own to offer relief to those with chronic or even terminal illnesses.
Davis told The State he plans to assuage opponents’ concerns this week of legislation he considers the most conservative in the country, and certainly in the South, where few states have legalized it.
Though the Beaufort Republican is confident he has the votes to pass the bill in the Senate, getting it through the House is still in question.
Davis said he has gotten a commitment from House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, to ensure the bill gets a debate. However, Lucas office disputed that claims.
“Sen. Davis does not speak for Speaker Lucas,” spokeswoman Nicolette Walters said, saying Lucas looks forward to seeing what happens in the Senate.
Davis faces a tough deadline.
If the bill doesn’t get passed by both chambers before the early May deadline, cutting off the Legislature’s regular work session for the year, the legislation effectively dies and will have to be refiled again next year.
“I fully expect that given those commitments (making debate a priority) we are going to stand here in three or four months celebrating a bill signed where Gov. (Henry) McMaster finally makes us not one of the 14 states who refuses to acknowledge medicine, but one of the 37 states that has recognized it,” Davis said at a press conference last week.
The legislation — S. 150 — is one of the most narrow in the country, drafted in such a way to appease some opponents after years of watching it be struck down.
The bill would allow medical cannabis only in the form of lotions and creams with less than 4,000 milligrams of THC — the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana — and oils, extracts, capsules or other edible forms with less than 1,600 grams of THC. Oils for vaporization would be limited to 8,200 milligrams of THC.
And all medical marijuana products would have to be prescribed by a licensed doctor.
Raw, smokeable cannabis would not be legalized under the bill, meaning South Carolina would join two other states and Puerto Rico that currently do not allow the smoking of marijuana — an absence that has left some advocates for people with serious illnesses and diseases disgruntled.
The bill also limits who can be prescribed medical marijuana.
Users must have been diagnosed with cancer, epilepsy, seizures, terminal illnesses and post-traumatic stress disorder, to name a few. The marijuana also could be prescribed in place of opioids for patients that have chronic or debilitating conditions, potentially lessening the number of people who are prescribed addictive opioids.
More than 1,000 South Carolinians died of an overdose in 2020 — a 59% increase in deaths over the previous year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, state medical providers wrote 60.4 opioid prescriptions for every 100 people, higher than the national rate, according to a State Emergency Management Division report.
The legislation also limits the number of licensed cultivators who would be allowed to grow marijuana in South Carolina. And it outlines the number of processing, transporting, testing and dispensing facilities.
The state health department would have two years to draft regulations and implement the legislation.
If South Carolina legalized medical marijuana, it would be one of very few Southern states to do so.
Medical cannabis is still illegal in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi, though the states have legalized low THC cannabis products.
In all, 36 states across the country have legalized medical marijuana.
Alabama was the most recent state to legalize medical cannabis when Gov. Kay Ivey signed it in to law in February 2021. However, it won’t be available until at least 2023, officials predict.
Under the law, Alabama users have to fit one of 16 diagnosis, like cancer, depression, autism, PTSD, terminal illness and chronic pain. South Carolina’s bill does not allow cannabis prescriptions for depression.
Louisiana technically first legalized medical marijuana for cancer and glaucoma patients in 1978. The law was never fully acted upon by the state’s health department, tasked with product and distribution. For years, doctors were able to prescribe marijuana, but there was no where for patients to get their prescription filled.
In 2019, the state made non-smokeable marijuana products available to those with a prescription. Last year, the legislature voted to allow raw, smokeable medical cannabis.
Officials with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, the agency tasked with implementing the state’s medical marijuana plan, did not return requests for comment.
Another state, Florida, voted to legalize medical marijuana in 2014.
Florida doctors can now prescribe low-THC cannabis to patients with certain diagnosis, like cancer, epilepsy or seizures. In 2016, the state passed a bill to allow terminally ill patients to access full-strength medical marijuana, and, later that year, Florida voters approved a ballot measure to expand who can access the product.
In 2020, Florida pocketed about $73 million in sales tax from marijuana products and about $50 million in licensing fees.
Florida health department officials did not return requests for comment by deadline.
The legislation faces potentially serious roadblocks.
One of the bill’s strongest opponents is Chief Mark Keel, the head of the State Law Enforcement Division.
“My position on medical marijuana is well known and unchanged. Until it is approved by the FDA, prescribed by a physician, and dispensed by a pharmacist I remain opposed to it,” Keel said. “Doctors cannot legally prescribe it and pharmacists cannot legally dispense it.”
Next to the state’s top officer, other law enforcement groups oppose the bill.
A Jan. 20 email from the South Carolina Republican Party, but written by Kevin Tolson, president of the state’s Sheriff’s Association, called the bill “a dangerous idea.”
“I understand supporters of this bill are seeking to bring comfort and relief to friends and family members who are suffering from debilitating illnesses,” Tolson wrote. “I have extreme compassion for those individuals, but I can’t endorse or even ignore the attempt to provide relief through illegal methods, especially when those attempts will jeopardize public safety.”
Some senators also have concerns.
“The South Carolina General Assembly is not qualified, we don’t have the training, the knowledge and the skill to tell our citizens which medicines are good for them and which medicines are not good for them,” said state Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry, a former solicitor. “That’s not what we do. We’re not the FDA.”
Despite the bill’s narrow definition of who can be prescribed cannabis, the legislation could be abused and expanded in the future to recreational, he argued.
“This is the pathway that the pro-marijuana crowd has used in every state,” Hembree said.
Gov. Henry McMaster has not said whether he’d veto the legislation should it make it to his desk.
Last summer, McMaster said medical marijuana could treat a lot of suffering, but that the state needed to be “very careful and use common sense” if it were to be legalized.
The governor’s spokesman confirmed McMaster’s stance had not changed.
Despite opposition from lawmakers and some Republicans, medical marijuana is wildly popular among South Carolina’s voters.
Last year, Republican firm Starboard Communications polled likely general election voters, showing 72% said they would support legalizing medical marijuana in South Carolina.
In the Legislature, the bill also has plenty of powerful GOP supporters.
This year, Davis built a bipartisan panel of supporters to help push the bill, including Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Luke Rankin, R-Horry.
The legislation has 14 cosponsors. It needs nine more senators to pass.
The House might be trickier. Of 124 members, every single one is up for reelection in November.
“It needs to pass,” House Minority Leader Rutherford, D-Richland, said earlier this month. “Period.”
State Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Beaufort, said he knows the benefits of medical marijuana. Herbkersman’s brother, who died from cancer, used cannabis for his appetite and sleep.
“I think it’s truly a benefit, a naturally healing benefit,” Herbkersman said.
Herbkersman and other advocates for medical marijuana might have time finally on their side in 2022.
There will be some stalwart opponents, the same who typically vote against marijuana and liquor bills, he said, but Herbkersman predicted that if the bill reached the House floor, it would pass.
“There’s no question in my mind,” Herbkersman said.
Some of the most conservative lawmakers could vote for it.
State Rep. John McCravy, is a founding member and chair of the Family Caucus, a conservative group of lawmakers who were successful in passing conservative bills last year, including a strict anti-abortion proposal.
McCravy is against the bill, saying he worries about control over who could get marijuana.
“It would be a whole different thing,” McCravy said. “We have a lot of dangerous substances used as medicines, but they’re not just given out by dispensaries.”
But the group hasn’t voted on an official stance on the bill. And there are mixed feelings within the caucus, he said.
Some members see medicinal marijuana, not recreational, as having some benefit to those suffering with chronic illness.
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