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Yesterday, the Louisiana Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved legislation to develop rules and guidelines for the production and sale of medical marijuana.
Louisiana’s Republican State Senator Fred Mills sponsored Senate Bill 143. The bill gives the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy the authority to develop the rules to regulate a tightly constrained dispensary system.
Senator Mills is a pharmacist who led the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy for three years. He said that he became interested in the issue in the late 1990s when people called the Board to ask where medical marijuana was available. The answer he gave them was nowhere in Louisiana.
Senator Mills said, “One family called me and said they bought medical marijuana in Colorado. They were begging to know where they could get more.”
Second attempt by Senator Mills
Senator Mills attributed the passage of the bill to his collaboration with the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association. That enabled Mills to get his bill written so that the group could take a neutral stance on it. The opinion of the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association carries lots of weight with legislators and their constituents.
This was the second time that Senator Mills has submitted legislation pertaining to medical marijuana. His bill died in the same committee last year after he faced significant opposition from the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association and the Louisiana’s District Attorney Association. Those groups were concerned that the enactment of such legislation could lead to widespread illegal use of marijuana for personal pleasure.
Even though the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association took a neutral stance on the bill, the executive director of the organization, Mike Ranatza, sat next to Senator Mills and spoke of the good he thought it could do, if tightly constrained and properly regulated.
Ranatza said, “The move our sheriffs made was to be compassionate, to provide relief and hopefully not harm anyone.”
Bill heads to the Senate
The bill is similar to the legislation passed in New York. The bill states that medical marijuana cannot be smoked. The bill would allow access to medical marijuana to patients who suffer from glaucoma, spastic quadriplegia and those undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer.
The bill will now go to the Louisiana State Senate for consideration before being sent over to the House of Representatives. Senator Mills thinks one of the major challenges is keeping the debate focused only on using marijuana for medical use. He wants to find an area where all parties can agree on the legislation that helps the patients in need without creating additional work for law enforcement.
Senator Mills said, “In the end, these are decisions that should be made between physicians and their patients.”
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