As South Carolina lawmakers and advocates put pressure on the House to advance a Senate-passed medical marijuana legalization bill, a new poll shows the reform enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support.<\/p>\n
The Mason-Dixon Poll, conducted from March 6-11, found that 83 percent of registered voters are in favor of medical cannabis legalization, including 93 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Republicans and 84 percent on independents.<\/p>\n
To that end, Sen. Tom Davis (R) was joined by several House lawmakers, the executive director of the SC Compassionate Care Alliance, the state director of Americans for Prosperity and other allies at a press conference on Tuesday to rally support for his medical cannabis bill that he\u2019s advocated for over recent sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been 10 years that I\u2019ve been working on this legislation, but that\u2019s good,\u201d Davis said. \u201cOver the 10 years, we have made this bill very, very tight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Gil Gatch (R) also spoke in favor of the legislation, stating that there are \u201cso many things that are happening in people\u2019s lives that are really a huge burden on not only the people who are suffering from the ailment, but also their family members who see them in pain, and their heart breaks, and they want to be able to step in and do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that this medical cannabis bill would be the next step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nRep. Joe Bustos (R), a military veteran, said he considers medical marijuana \u201canother tool that the medical community can use to provide comfort for those people who are suffering from those ailments.\u201d<\/p>\n
SC Compassion President Jill Swing, whose daughter has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, said advocates are \u201ctired of seeing loved ones suffer, families torn apart, and lives destroyed by our state\u2019s current cannabis policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeriously ill South Carolinians should not have to break the law or move to another state to access this medically beneficial and often life-saving plant,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are thankful that compassionate lawmakers have heard our pleas for help and responded with this commonsense legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Senate approved the medical marijuana bill in February<\/a>, it still needs to clear the House before potentially being sent to the desk of Gov. Henry McMaster (R)\u2014a prospect that\u2019s far from certain. The Senate had passed an earlier version of the legislation in 2022 but it stalled in the opposite body over a procedural hiccup.<\/p>\n Davis said at the press conference that the legislation has been idle in the House without a committee hearing over the past two months since the latest Senate vote, and \u201cthat\u2019s not fair to the people of South Carolina\u201d and it\u2019s \u201cnot fair to the patients in South Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare bureaucrats and czars should not be telling physicians and patients what to do,\u201d the senator added in a press release<\/a>. \u201cMedical freedom\u2014the primacy of the physician-patient relationship\u2014is something legislators like to say they champion, so let\u2019s empower physicians who think cannabis can be therapeutic for their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n March 2024 \u2066@MasonDixonPoll<\/a>\u2069 re: South Carolinians\u2019 support for #MedicalMarijuana<\/a>: 83% all voters, 74% GOP, 84% independents, 93% Dems. Yet the bill that passed the SC Senate languishes in the SC House, where pols insist on making medical decisions for physicians\/patients. pic.twitter.com\/Rf90x7kyCL<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Tom Davis (@SenTomDavisSC) March 13, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Overall, the bill would allow patients to access cannabis from licensed dispensaries if they receive a doctor\u2019s recommendation for the treatment of qualifying conditions, which include several specific ailments as well as terminal illnesses and chronic diseases where opioids are the standard of care.<\/p>\n When senators began debating the medical marijuana legislation<\/a> in February, the body adopted an amendment that clarifies the bill does not require landlords or people who control property to allow vaporization of cannabis products.<\/p>\n As debate on the legislation continued, members clashed over whether the current version of the legislation contains major differences<\/a>\u00a0from an earlier iteration that the body passed in 2022.<\/p>\n Certain lawmakers have also raised concerns that medical cannabis legalization would lead to broader reform to allow adult-use marijuana, that it could put pharmacists with roles in dispensing cannabis in jeopardy and that federal law could preempt the state\u2019s program, among other worries.<\/p>\n Here are the main provisions of the\u00a0bill<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n After Davis\u2019s Senate-passed medical cannabis bill was blocked in the House in 2022, he\u00a0tried another avenue for the reform proposal<\/a>, but that similarly failed on procedural grounds.<\/p>\n The lawmaker has called the stance of his own party, particularly as it concerns medical marijuana, \u201can intellectually lazy position that doesn\u2019t even try to present medical facts as they currently exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Virginia Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Workplace Protection Bill For Firefighters And Other Public Sector Workers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post As South Carolina Lawmakers Urge House Vote On Medical Marijuana Bill, New Poll Shows Strong Bipartisan Support<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
As South Carolina lawmakers and advocates put pressure on the House to advance a Senate-passed medical marijuana legalization bill, a new poll shows the reform enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support. The Mason-Dixon Poll, conducted from March 6-11, found that 83 percent of registered voters are in favor of medical cannabis legalization,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73920"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73921,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73920\/revisions\/73921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: As South Carolina Lawmakers Urge House Vote On Medical Marijuana Bill, New Poll Shows Strong Bipartisan Support<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"