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A new Republican-led bill to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky landed in the state legislature this week. The measure is an update to lead sponsor Rep. Jason Nemes\u2019s (R) past legalization efforts and includes a number of conservative-minded adjustments aimed at wining broad support among lawmakers, including leaders of his own party who control the legislative agenda.<\/p>\n
Nemes filed a medical legalization bill in 2020 that soundly passed the House<\/a> but later died in the Senate without a vote amid the early part of the coronavirus pandemic. He reintroduced the legislation<\/a>\u00a0for the 2021 session, but it did not advance. In recent months, Nemes has\u00a0working to build support<\/a> for a new, scaled-back version of the bill for 2022 and in October said he was confident it could pass if only legislative leaders have the \u201ccourage\u201d to allow a vote on it.<\/p>\n The latest version of the bill, HB 136, introduced Tuesday, would establish a comparatively restrictive program, prohibiting both the home cultivation of marijuana and the smoking of cannabis flower. Whole-plant products would be allowed under the bill, but patients would be required to vaporize them.<\/p>\n Regulators would set many of the program\u2019s specific rules\u2014for example qualifying conditions for medical cannabis and personal possession limits\u2014during an implementation period later this year if the bill passes. At a minimum, the conditions will include any type of cancer, epilepsy and seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis, nausea or vomiting and chronic, severe, intractable or debilitating pain.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall it\u2019s a pretty solid but conservative bill,\u201d Kevin Caldwell, Southeast legislative manager for Marijuana Policy Project told Marijuana Moment.<\/p>\n \u2014 The program would launch in early 2023 if the legislation is approved.<\/p>\n The narrow approach is designed to win support among GOP leaders in the state Senate, who\u2019ve killed past versions of Nemes\u2019s proposal. Senate Floor Leader Damon Thayer (R), for example, steadfastly opposes the change, having warned that it\u2019s a fast track to full legalization.<\/p>\n \u201cI know my constituents are for it,\u201d Thayer, who owns a whiskey distillery, said during a televised panel on Monday<\/a>. \u201cBut this is a republic, and they elect us to go to Frankfort and make decisions on their behalf\u2014and if they don\u2019t like it, they can take it out on me in the next election.\u201d<\/p>\n Others remain wary, such as House Speaker Pro Tempore David Meade (R), who said at the event that he\u2019s still \u201con the fence\u201d about medical cannabis.<\/p>\n Democratic leaders from both chambers, meanwhile, said earlier this week that legalizing medical marijuana will be a top legislative priority<\/a> for this year\u2019s session, which kicked off on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Gov. Andy Beshear (D) also supports legalization, saying last month that \u201cIt\u2019s time we joined so many other states in doing the right thing.\u201d He added that Kentucky farmers would be well positioned to grow and sell cannabis to other states<\/a>.<\/p>\n Among the more innovative parts of the new bill<\/a>, said Caldwell at MPP, are provisions that would ban discrimination against cannabis patients in areas such as child custody matters and organ transplants. Students who use medical marijuana would be permitted to consume it on campus under the administration of a school nurse.<\/p>\n The legislation would also establish what it calls a \u201crating system\u201d system to track at least 12 major terpenes within each cannabis strain available in the commonwealth.<\/p>\n Patients would be able to have a 10-day supply of marijuana products outside the home and up to a 30-day supply secured at their residence. Those amounts are still poorly defined, however, as the bill leaves it to regulators to determine what constitutes a day\u2019s worth of cannabis.<\/p>\n Products would be subject to a 12 percent excise tax and taxes on gross receipts, with revenues split between state and local governments. Of all state revenue, 13.75 percent would go to local law enforcement to help enforce the new law.<\/p>\n Business licensing would be fairly flexible, with no caps on license numbers or rules about vertical integration, as some other states have implemented.<\/p>\n Caldwell at MPP said the group generally supports the bill, though there are things he\u2019d like to change. He said the tax rate seems high for medical cannabis, which in many states is not taxed at all, and that he would prefer to see more qualifying conditions spelled out in bill\u2019s text rather than left to regulators.<\/p>\n But he deferred to the bill\u2019s sponsors, noting the precarious path the bill must travel on its way to passage. \u201cThese legislators are much more familiar with their own political landscape than necessarily we are,\u201d he said, \u201cand we know that there\u2019s very serious opposition on the Senate side.\u201d<\/p>\n Nemes, the bill\u2019s lead sponsor, said in October that he believes lawmakers will vote for the measure if only legislative leaders give them a chance. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt about it\u2014we have the votes for it in the House and Senate,\u201d he told colleagues at a committee meeting. \u201cIt passed 65 to 30 in the House [in 2020] when we were told it wouldn\u2019t pass. We need to have the courage to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n While Beshear, the govenror, has said that his focus will be on getting medical cannabis enacted in the coming legislative session, he said he also supports legislation introduced by Rep. Nima Kulkarni (D) in November that would prevent people from being incarcerated over marijuana for any use, saying he\u2019s in favor of that policy.<\/p>\n Kulkarni\u2019s bill would\u00a0legalize the possession and personal cultivation of cannabis<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t provide a regulatory framework for commercial sales.<\/p>\n A\u00a0poll released in 2020 found\u00a0that nine out of 10 Kentucky residents support legalizing medical marijuana<\/a>, and almost 60 percent say cannabis should be legal under \u201cany circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Mississippi Senator Brings Hemp To Governor\u2019s Office To Demonstrate Medical Marijuana Bill Possession Limits<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post New Republican-Led Bill Would Legalize Medical Cannabis In Kentucky<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A new Republican-led bill to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky landed in the state legislature this week. The measure is an update to lead sponsor Rep. Jason Nemes\u2019s (R) past legalization efforts and includes a number of conservative-minded adjustments aimed at wining broad support among lawmakers, including leaders of hisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":52194,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52195,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52193\/revisions\/52195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: New Republican-Led Bill Would Legalize Medical Cannabis In Kentucky<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"