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The Pennsylvania State House health committee voted unanimously to move a medical marijuana legalization bill to a committee whose chairman is open to the idea. The bill will be sent to the House rules committee headed by Republican Representative Dave Reed, who serves as the house majority leader.
The bill was previously assigned to the House Health Committee chaired by Republican Representative Matt Baker. Last year, a similar bill died in the Pennsylvania House after being approved by the Senate. Representative Baker recently said that he has no intention to allow his committee to take up the Senate’s bill or any bill to legalize medical marijuana.
Senate Bill 3 creates a tightly regulated program
Senate Bill 3 is a bipartisan bill spearheaded by Senators Daylin Leach (Democrat) and a Mike Folmer (Republican) that creates a tightly regulated medical marijuana program which bans smoking marijuana and the sale of edibles.
Senate Bill 3 would legalize medical marijuana for patients who suffer from one of 15 specific conditions provided other methods of treatment have not been effective. The conditions include: cancer; epilepsy and seizures; ALS; wasting syndrome; Parkinson’s disease; traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome; multiple sclerosis; SCA; PTSD; severe fibromyalgia; HIV/AIDS; glaucoma; Crohn’s disease; diabetes; and chronic pain.
Representative Baker is a hypocrite
Representative Baker has stated that he will not advance Senate Bill 3 because cannabis is not approved by the FDA. The part I find interesting is that Representative Baker has accepted campaign contributions from multiple pharmaceutical companies who have paid over $1 billion to settle charges for having marketed drugs for uses not approved by the FDA.
Representative Baker’s public campaign finance records show significant contributions from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture drugs which treat many of those qualifying conditions, and would thus profit from the continued prohibition of cannabis based medicine. When breaking down Representative Baker’s public campaign contributions by industry, the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry made up the largest percentage of reported contributions, totaling $32,800. Baker received several notable individual contributions from pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacies and drug wholesalers that totaled over $37,000.
Open to medical marijuana but still has questions
Although Representative Reed expressed openness to legal medical marijuana he mentioned that House members aren’t entirely comfortable with Senate Bill 3.
On Monday, Representative Reed’s spokesman, Steve Miskin, declined to provide a timetable for dealing with the bill. He said he was unaware of any deal among House leaders to sit on the bill until fall.
Miskin said Reed’s goal is to come up with language for the bill which will receive enough votes to pass in the House of Representatives. He said House members do not support the new state board proposed in SB 3 to regulate medical marijuana, but did not identify any other problems with the bill.
Outlook
In late May, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf said, “We ought to let doctors prescribe the medications that they think their patients need. I don’t think that’s a really unusual thing to ask of our legislators. This passed overwhelmingly in the Senate. I think it would probably pass overwhelmingly in the House, if we can convince the right people to do the right thing.”
In Pennsylvania, public opinion polls show nearly 90% support for medical marijuana. This high level of support as well as support for the Governor should be enough for the House to vote on medical marijuana. The reality is that state-level legislators are dependent on contributions to finance costly reelections and as such the interests of corporate contributions will many times outweigh the rationale for legislation that is clearly in the public’s interest.
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