The Mississippi House of Representatives has approved a bill to allow terminally ill patients to access medical marijuana in hospitals, nursing facilities and hospice centers.
About a week after advancing out of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, the full chamber passed the legislation from Rep. Kevin Felsher (R) in a 117-1 vote on Wednesday.
Known as “Ryan’s Law,” an acknowledgement of a young cannabis patient who passed and whose father has since become an advocate for access in hospital settings, the bill is meant to “support the ability of terminally ill qualifying patients to safely use medical cannabis within specified health care facilities.”
“Ryan’s Law is rooted in one simple principle: at the end of life, compassion and medical judgment should come before bureaucracy,” Felsher said on the floor before the vote. “This legislation will allow terminally ill qualifying patients to safely use medical cannabis within a specific healthcare facility, including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and hospice facilities.”
The legislation would require hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and hospice centers to “allow terminally ill qualifying patients in the facility to use medical cannabis” in forms other than smoking or vaping.
There’s also another carve-out in the legislation stipulating that, if a federal agency such as the Justice Department or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services takes enforcement action against a health facility over the cannabis policy change or issues guidance explicitly prohibiting the reform from being implemented, that facility may suspend compliance with the state law until the federal issue is resolved.
Short of that, under HB 1034, patients or their caregivers would be “responsible for acquiring, retrieving, administering and removing medical cannabis,” the legislation summary says. Medical marijuana products would need to be “stored securely at all times in a locked container in the patient’s room or other designated area.”
Health professionals and facility staff would be prohibited from administering or retrieving the cannabis from storage. And after a patient is discharged, “all remaining medical cannabis must be removed by the patient or patient’s designated caregiver.”
Activists hope to see the law widely enacted across the U.S. to ensure that patients, particularly those with terminal illnesses, are able to legally utilize cannabis. California and Minnesota have already moved forward with the policy change.
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Meanwhile in Mississippi, the House on Wednesday also approved a bill from Rep. Lee Yancey (R) that would remove the THC limit on non-combustable cannabis products and extend the validity of patient registrations for residents to two years (and non-residents to 90 days) before they’d have to be renewed.
Also in the state, lawmakers recently approved legislation to support research in hopes of gaining federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the psychedelic ibogaine as a novel treatment option.
Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.
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