Marijuana Moment: Bills To Let Patients Use Medical Marijuana In Hospitals Are Advancing In States Across The U.S.

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Lawmakers in multiple states are considering bills to allow seriously ill patients to access and use medical marijuana in hospitals and other healthcare facilities, with several such proposals advancing this week and one running into a legislative roadblock.

While the specific provisions of the legislation differs from state to state, the main goal is same: Legislators are hoping to adopt versions of what’s known as “Ryan’s law,” named after a young medical cannabis patient in California who passed away.

The 2026 session has seen iterations of the reform move in a wide variety of state legislatures so far. And this week, Ryan’s Law bills have seen positive action in at least five states—Connecticut, Hawaii, Oregon, Virginia and Washington State—while stalling, at least for now, in Mississippi.

Here’s a look at where Ryan’s Law bills are seeing action in state legislatures:

Connecticut

Members of the Connecticut legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health held a hearing on a bill to allow terminally ill patients to access cannabis products that could not be smoked or vaporized at health facilities such as hospitals. That would not extend to patients receiving emergency care, however.

The bill, HB 5242, also stipulates that health facilities could suspend the medical cannabis allowance if a federal agency such as the Justice Department or Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) initiates an enforcement action or issues guidance specifically prohibiting medical marijuana access on their premises.

Erin Gorman Kirk, Connecticut’s Cannabis Ombudsman, advised the joint committee that current policy means “a registered patient facing a terminal prognosis may be forced to abandon their legally authorized regimen the moment they are admitted to a hospital or nursing home.”

“Patients who cannot or will not tolerate opioids, or who have found in medical cannabis the only effective relief for their pain, nausea, or anxiety, are left without options simply because of where they receive care,” she said. “HB 5242 corrects this by requiring covered facilities to allow those with a terminal prognosis of one year or less, to use non-smokable cannabis forms including tinctures, edibles, and topicals.”

“HB 5242 is important, impactful, and morally necessary. It is a n ethical, commonsense bill that protects vulnerable patients who do not want opioids, who cannot tolerate them, or who have simply found in cannabis the relief and clarity that allows them to die with dignity. Medical cannabis is backed by clinical evidence, endorsed by nurses and policy analysts who work with these patients every day, and modeled on laws that are working right now in states across the country. Connecticut should not be a state that tells a dying patient: your medicine is legal, your doctor approved it, but you cannot have it here.”

The Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA), meanwhile, voiced opposition to the proposal, telling lawmakers that the bill “misapprehends several issues about the laws and regulations governing hospitals.”

“HB 5242 requires Connecticut hospitals to break the law—a law that [the Department of Public Health, or DPH] itself will need to enforce as part of the [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS] oversight system and the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) would need to enforce as part of its role overseeing controlled substances laws,” it said.

The Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities and Connecticut Center for Assisted Living (CAHCF/CCAL) also submitted testimony in opposition to the reform, advising that “compliance would place providers in a very difficult and untenable situation of trying to navigate conflicting federal and state laws.”

Hawaii

A Hawaii bill to allow qualifying patients to access medical marijuana at health facilities passed another Senate committee on Friday—a development that comes as a House companion version also advances.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the legislation from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D).

The proposal, SB 2408, states that it’s the “intent of the legislature in enacting this chapter to support the ability of terminally ill patients and qualifying patients over sixty-five years of age with chronic diseases to safely use medical cannabis within specified health care facilities.”

Health facilities that could allow such cannabis use would be limited to residential centers that provide a “non-institutional, homelike environment” with inpatient care that’s “generally less intense than that provided in general acute care hospitals but more intense than that provided in skilled nursing facilities.”

Smoking or vaping marijuana would not be permitted at eligible facilities under the bill. And health facilities would not be required to facilitate the issuance of medical cannabis recommendations to patients.

In the event that a federal regulatory agency, Justice Department or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) takes enforcement action against a health facility related to the medical cannabis policy, or if they explicitly notify the facility that they’re violating federal law, the health care institution could suspend the policy.

The state Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation (OMCCR) under the Department of Health (DOH) submitted testimony ahead of Friday’s committee hearing that said it appreciates the legislation, and it feels members of a prior legislative panel adequately addressed concerns they initially had about potential complicated resulting from conflicts with federal law prohibiting marijuana.

In previous testimony, the office of the Hawaii attorney general said it felt the legislation could put the state’s health centers at risk of enforcement action from the federal government.

Supporters of the legislation, meanwhile, include the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and Hawai‘i Alliance for Cannabis Reform, as well as its member organizations such as the ACLU of Hawaii and Last Prisoner Project (LPP).

Mississippi

As lawmakers in several other states are advancing measures to allow patients to use medical cannabis in healthcare facilities, the issue saw a setback in Mississippi this week.

A House-passed bill to allow terminally ill patients to access medical marijuana in hospitals, nursing facilities and hospice centers was rejected by a Senate committee.

The legislation from Rep. Kevin Felsher (R) 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.”

Despite clearing the House in a 117-1  earlier this month, the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee rejected the measure on Wednesday.

Sen. Angela Burks Hill (R) said she worried it could make medical professional subject to liability issues and raised concerns about medical cannabis’s potential to negatively interact with other medications and conditions.

Sen. Hob Bryan (D), the chair of the panel said he thinks that “if you’re terminally ill, you ought to have access to most anything you want,” according to The Clarion Ledger.

One lawmaker proposed an amendment to make hospital participation with the law optional and not mandatory, but Felsher, the bill sponsor, rejected the idea.

“If we put ‘may’ in there, we might as well not have a bill,” he said. “We’re talking about people with less than 12 months left to live.”

Another amendment to limit the legislation only to hospitals with a hospice unit was also rejected.

The legislation was ultimately defeated by the panel in an 8-9 vote—but a motion to reconsider was made, allowing it to potentially advance next week if one lawmakers changes their mind.

Oregon

The Oregon Senate Health Care Committee on Wednesday approved a House-passed bill to allow patients with debilitating medical conditions to access medical marijuana in certain health facilities such as hospices.

The legislation from Rep. Farrah Chaichi (D) cleared the House in a 39-3 vote earlier this month, and the Senate panel advanced it in a 3-2 vote.

Chaichi said in testimony to the committee that the bill is “an important tool to facilitate cannabis use as an alternative or addition to opioid use in end of life care.

“While sometimes necessary, opiates are often overly sedative, preventing quality family interaction in someone’s final days,” she said. “As someone who lost my mother while she was intubated, I know how meaningful it is for patients to be present and in the moments of their last days and weeks with their loved ones. This is a quality of life and a quality of care issue. The bill’s goal is to ensure patients who desire this important and valid medical treatment have access across the board.”

HB 4142 would require hospice, palliative and home care organizations, as well as residential facilities, to develop rules permitting registered patients with debilitating conditions to use medical cannabis.

The reform is similar to—albeit somewhat more limited than—multiple “Ryan’s law” measures that have advanced in state legislatures across the country. Ryan’s law, which is named after a young cannabis patient in California who passed away, generally refers to a policy broadly permitting medical marijuana use in health facilities such as hospitals.

The Oregon bill wouldn’t extend to hospitals, but it would build upon the state’s medical cannabis program in a way that advocates say would meaningfully improve quality of life for seriously ill patients.

Under the proposal, the Oregon State Board of Nursing would further be prohibited “from disciplining a nurse who discusses the medical use of marijuana with a patient,” according to a legislative summary. It would additionally make it so eligible health facilities could act as medical marijuana caregivers if authorized by regulators.

The legislation “exempts residential facilities that provide a patient with medical marijuana from criminal laws related to the possession, delivery, or manufacture of marijuana” and “allows a conditionally designated residential facility to develop a written policy and train staff before the operative date,” the summary says.

If enacted into law, the measure would become operative on January 1, 2027.

Virginia

Virginia lawmakers in both chambers this week took steps to advance legislation to allow patients to use medical marijuana in hospitals.

After each chamber earlier this month approved differing versions of the cannabis legislation, the sponsors of those bills have agreed on a compromise approach which cleared the House in a 97-1 vote on Tuesday and the Senate by a vote of 39-1 on Thursday.

As amended, SB 332 from Sen. Barbara Favola (D) and HB 75 from Del. Karen Keys-Gamarra (D) would build upon existing state law protecting health professionals at hospices, nursing homes and assisted living facilities that aid terminally ill patients in utilizing medical cannabis treatment from punishment by adding hospitals to the statute.

It would also create a new working group under the Department of Health to “discuss the implementation process for providing cannabis products to patients within medical care facilities.”

“The work group shall assess any available federal guidance or proposed regulations on the use of cannabis products or changes to the schedule for cannabis products under the federal Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.) as well as interaction with applicable state laws,” the bill says.

Its members would include representatives of the Virginia Hospital & Health Care Association and the Virginia Health Care Association, as well as health care providers and palliative, hospice, and hospital volunteers familiar with issues associated with providing care to individuals experiencing chronic illness.

The legislation directs the working group to submit a report to key legislative committees including “written guidelines for the use of medical cannabis within medical care facilities and the safe operations of medical care facilities” by November 1.

Washington State

A Washington State Senate committee took up a House-passed bill to allow terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes and hospices on Thursday.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Shelley Kloba (D), would mandate that hospitals and other specified healthcare facilities allow terminally ill patients to use medical marijuana on the premises beginning on January 1, 2027, subject to certain rules and restrictions.

“The medical use of cannabis may support improved quality of life for a qualifying patient…with a terminal condition,” the bill’s text says. “It is the intent of the legislature to promote dignity and comfort for terminally ill patients while maintaining the integrity and safety of health care environments.”

Under HB 2152, patients and their caregivers would be responsible for acquiring and administering medical marijuana, and it would need to be stored securely at all times in a locked container.

Smoking or vaping of cannabis would be prohibited, so patients would need to consume it via other methods.

Marijuana could not be shared between patients and visitors, and the right to use medical cannabis under the bill would not apply to patients who are in the emergency department.

Healthcare facility officials would need to see a copy of patients’ authorization to use medical cannabis, and they would be required to note their use of the drug in medical records. They would also need to establish a formal policy “allowing for the medical use of cannabis” on the premises.

Facilities would also be able to suspend permission to use cannabis under the bill if a federal agency such as the U.S. Department of Justice or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services takes an enforcement action against such use or “issues a rule or other notification that expressly prohibits the medical use of cannabis in health care facilities.”

The House Health Care & Wellness Committee adopted an amendment to exempt nursing homes operated by a residential habilitation center from the requirement to allow the medical use of cannabis, to clarify that the bill doesn’t apply to patients who haven’t been formally admitted to a hospital and to specify that patients and their caregivers are responsible for retrieving the medical cannabis (in addition to their responsibilities related to acquiring, administering, and removing the medical cannabis).

The Senate panel has not yet scheduled a vote on the measure, but took testimony from advocates this week.

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