Marijuana Moment: Louisiana Bill To Let Terminally Ill Patients Use Medical Marijuana In Hospitals Advances Toward Final Passage

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A Louisiana House committee has advanced a Senate-passed bill to let patients with terminal and irreversible conditions use medical marijuana in hospitals.

The House Health and Welfare Committee approved the legislation from Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews (D) in a unanimous 10-0 vote on Tuesday.

Under the proposal, hospitals would have to create written guidelines allowing covered patients to consume medical cannabis on-site in forms other than smoking or vaping.

Under an amendment adopted by a Senate committee last month, emergency or outpatient departments would be exempted from the policy. The revised legislation also clarifies that patients and primary caregivers are responsible for acquiring and administering medical marijuana, which must be “stored securely at all times in a locked container provided by the patient.”

Health care professionals and staff would be prohibited from “administering, storing, retrieving, or assisting the patient with the medical marijuana,” the text says.

The amendment, which the sponsor worked on with help from the Louisiana Hospital Association, also allows hospitals to opt out of the policy if federal officials take action against any healthcare facility in the state over medical cannabis use, rather than only allowing those that were specifically targeted to stop complying.

“This bill was brought at the request of constituents who believe that therapeutic medical marijuana, which is already legal in this state, should be offered in hospitals when patients are terminally ill or otherwise in need the comfort of this medicine,” Jackson-Andrews told the Senate Health and Welfare Committee when the panel took up the legislation.

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Meanwhile in Louisiana, another piece of drug policy legislation that has traction this session would create a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program, using opioid settlement dollars to fund clinical trials aimed at developing alternative treatments such as psilocybin, ibogaine and MDMA.

Separately, a lawmaker recently filed a proposal that would create a new state task force to “study and develop findings and recommendations regarding the potential legalization of recreational marijuana.”

At the same time, however, advocates are alarmed that lawmakers are advancing legislation that threatens to send people to jail for up to one year if they smoke marijuana within 2,000 feet of a school property—including a college campus.

Another Louisiana legislator, meanwhile, recently introduced a bill to create an adult-use marijuana legalization pilot program in the state to determine whether the reform should eventually be expanded and permanently codified.

Rep. Candace Newell (D)—who has long championed legislation to end cannabis criminalization and filed a similar legal marijuana pilot program measure last session—is sponsoring what’s titled the “Adult-Use Cannabis Pilot Program Regulation and Enforcement Act.”

Getting the bill across the finish line could prove complicated in the conservative legislature, however. Newell’s earlier version of the pilot program legislation didn’t advance to enactment last year, and lawmakers that session also rejected other marijuana reform proposals such as one that would have established a tax system to prepare the eventual legalization of adult-use cannabis.

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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