Nebraska State Senator Mike Groene (R) introduced a bill recently that ostensibly seeks to legalize medical marijuana in the state—but activists have raised concerns that the restrictive measure may be an attempt to subvert an effort to pass even broader patient protections on the 2022 ballot, reported Marijuana Moment.
Under the new legislation backed by the Nebraska chapter of the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), people with stage IV cancer, uncontrolled seizures or severe muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis or muscular dystrophy, or a terminal illness with less than a one-year probable life expectancy would be able to buy cannabis oils, pills and up to two and a half ounces of flower at a limited number of dispensaries.
However, cultivating, consuming and making edibles from marijuana would be banned. It is therefore unclear how dispensaries would obtain cannabis products for their patients.
Shari Lawlor, a member of Nebraska Families for Medical Cannabis, said that as drafted, “this is a medical cannabis bill with no cannabis.
“It envisions a system with dispensaries but no farmers or cultivators who actually produce the medical cannabis that patients need,” Lawlor said. “And since patients are not allowed to cultivate medical cannabis themselves under this proposal, there is effectively no way for patients to get the relief they need.”
Jared Moffat, state campaigns manager at the Marijuana Policy Project, called the bill a stunt.
“This appears to be a political stunt,” Moffet said in a press release. “Opponents of medical cannabis know there is a viable campaign to put medical cannabis on the ballot, and they know Nebraskans will overwhelmingly support that effort.”
Photo Via Omaha World Herald.
