NC Senate clears controversial medical marijuana bill

It’s unclear whether the legislation, HB563, will have a better fate in the waning days of the 2024 session.

Meanwhile, Republican House leadership — as expected — placed House Bill 237 on Wednesday’s floor calendar for a potential veto override vote.

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed Friday HB237 that would loosen campaign-financing laws and significantly restrict public mask wearing for health and safety reasons. The Republican super-majorities in both chambers have the votes to override the veto at full attendance.

The Senate cleared similar medical marijuana legislation in Senate Bill 3, also by a 36-10 vote on March 1, 2023, only to have House speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, shelve the bill five days later.

HB563 was sent back to the House to either accept or reject the Senate’s insertion of the medical marijuana language.

Moore has told legislative media outlets that for a medical marijuana bill to clear the House, there would need to be “reasonable controls,” and a balance to have enough distributors to prescribe and avoid a monopoly.

Still, a block of House Republicans has opposed any medical marijuana language out of concern that it could serve as a gateway to legalized recreation marijuana use. They also claim that medical research isn’t definitive that it benefits users.

The bill also contains language that would: place Tianeptine, Xylazine and Kratom on the state’s controlled substance schedules; create criminal penalties for criminal possession and unlawful sale of embalming fluid; and create penalties for exposing a minor to a controlled substance.

HB563 would permit the use of medical marijuana — prescribed only by licensed physician — for individuals with ALS, cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments, but not for those experiencing chronic pain.

Importantly, the bill does not allow recreational marijuana usage or the marketing of medical marijuana to anyone under age 21.

The bill was amended on the Senate floor to clarify that even if the use of recreational marijuana is made legal under federal law, the N.C. legislature must approve as well.

The amendments opened the door to an atypical level of personal floor debate for a bill facing a typically procedural third vote.

Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg, asked if the amendment was designed to assure bill opponents that North Carolina would not be “on a slippery slope” when it comes to federal approval of recreational marijuana.

Several senators voting against HB563 did invoke slippery slope concerns about opening the door — “winking” was a common denominator — to eventually encouraging recreational use.

Sen. Ralph Hise, R-McDowell, said that the passage of HB563 doesn’t relieve legislators from “keeping their eye on the ball” in terms of efforts to dilute the symptoms required to access medical marijuana, as well as for potential loopholes that could allow for illegal access.

Sen. Mujtaba Mohammad, D-Mecklenburg, said the amendment could face constitutional challenges, particularly the supremacy clause that the U.S. Constitution takes precedence over state laws and constitutions.

The bill also was amended to ensure that licensed distributors of medical marijuana check the identification of anyone who looks to be age 30 and under, and to verify that no medical marijuana can be sold to anyone under age 21.

Rabon, chairman of the Senate Rules and Operations committee, was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2000 at age 48. He has said his oncologist initially told him he had as much as 18 months to live.

Rabon has acknowledged limited use of marijuana — “a few puffs” — enabled him to withstand the worst of his chemotherapy treatments as he continued to work at his veterinarian practice.

On Thursday, Rabon made another impassioned plea for recommendation of the medical marijuana language, particularly addressing its provision requiring the necessity of a doctor experienced in cannabis involved in treatment.

“The people who need — and can benefit from — medical-grade cannabis are dying every day,” Rabon said. “They are at their wit’s end. People are buying marijuana on the street and they don’t know what they’re getting and no idea the interaction with the drugs they are taking.

“We have a right-to-try bill that has passed the House unanimously and is going to be added on the (Senate) floor to the bill because people are dying. They need help to stay alive, to stay with their loved ones another day, to feel good about life, to have a meal, not be put on morphine so they don’t know what world they’re in.”

Addressing opponents of medical marijuana language, Rabon said that “if you are scared of the boogeyman, sleep with the lights on.”

“This is something we should do. I have lived it. Those who are dead-set against it should walk in my shoes, know what I’ve done.

“You can preach to me, folks, all you want about loving your fellow man,” Rabon said. “If you love your fellow man, you will try every day to make their life better.”

Rep. Jeffrey McNeely, R-Iredell, and primary sponsor of HB563, asked Senate Rules members to back out of the medical marijuana language, saying the proposed language in the previous version of the House bill should not be tied to language unlikely to pass the House.

“Don’t take your eye off the ball,” McNeely said. “We’re trying to regulate a completely unregulated industry that is hooking our children on marijuana at a very early age.

“It’s a pathway, and we need to be very mindful of that. So, don’t forget that part of this when some shining new object is added. We’re trying to save our children from a path of destruction.”

Rabon said the tightening of the hemp vaping regulation is important, saying, “We’re in the ninth inning on that one.”

That language, according to Rabon, attempts to fix “our dropping of the ball and letting something that should have been tightly regulated make it to our (retail) shelves, into our homes and into our children’s lives with absolutely no control.”

John Dinan, a Wake Forest University political science professor who is a national expert on state legislatures, said Rabon “is likely to continue pushing for a legalization bill.”

“It could end up as part of negotiations over a budget adjustment bill where the House and Senate are currently very far apart.”