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Virginia lawmakers have taken more steps toward enacting legislation that would let certain patients use medical marijuana in hospitals, teeing up the reform to be sent to the governor\u2019s desk imminently.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Senate signed off on the House of Delegates\u2019s changes to SB 332, sponsored by from Sen. Barbara Favola (D), and the presiding officers of both chambers formally signed the bicameral agreement.<\/p>\n
It will next head to Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) to be signed, vetoed or sent back with suggested amendments\u2014but first a companion House bill from Del. Karen Keys-Gamarra (D), HB 75, needs to have a procedural error corrected in order to accompany the Senate proposal.<\/p>\n
The legislation would\u00a0build 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.<\/p>\n
It would also create a new working group under the Department of Health to \u201cdiscuss the implementation process for providing cannabis products to patients within medical care facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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. \u00a7 801 et seq.) as well as interaction with applicable state laws,\u201d the bill says.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The legislation directs the working group to submit a report to key legislative committees including \u201cwritten guidelines for the use of medical cannabis within medical care facilities and the safe operations of medical care facilities\u201d by November 1.<\/p>\n
As originally introduced, the Senate measure would have simply directed the state the Department of Health to form a working group to explore the reform, but its scope was expanded in an earlier subcommittee hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCannabis oil has been effective in ameliorating some severe pain and also helping with nausea and appetite loss,\u201d Favola, the sponsor, said ahead of a Senate vote last month. SB 332<\/a> \u201chas a couple guardrails in it, and we\u2019re merely trying to treat patients in hospitals and give them the same options as we\u2019ve currently giving patients in nursing homes and in hospice.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senate also approved a substitute version of a House bill on the issue on Monday, but its text was mistakenly replaced with an earlier iteration that would add hospitals to the current medical cannabis law but only \u201cupon the date that marijuana is federally rescheduled from Schedule I to Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act.\u201d<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t supposed to be the plan, however, and the expectation is that the House will reject the revised HB 75<\/a> as passed by the Senate and go to bicameral conference where members will make it identical to the Senate bill that\u2019s now been approved in both chambers, with both then heading to the governor\u2019s office together.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the march toward legalizing recreational marijuana sales in Virginia also continues on, with the full House and a Senate committee advancing a pair of companion bills to create a regulated adult-use cannabis market<\/a> in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n Overall, both chambers\u2019 commercial sales bills have largely aligned with recommendations released in December by the legislature\u2019s\u00a0Joint Commission to Oversee the Transition of the Commonwealth into a Cannabis Retail Market<\/a>.<\/p>\n Certain GOP members have found themselves ideologically aligned with their Democratic colleagues throughout this legislative process, breaking with the majority of their caucus in support of creating a regulated marketplace for adults to purchase cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since legalizing cannabis possession and home cultivation in 2021,\u00a0Virginia lawmakers have worked to establish a commercial marijuana market<\/a>\u2014only to have those efforts consistently stalled under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who twice vetoed measures to enact it that were sent to his desk by the legislature.<\/p>\n Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), for her part, supports legalizing adult-use marijuana sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Virginia legislature took action on multiple marijuana bills on a key deadline last month<\/a>\u2014passing proposals to legalize cannabis sales, provide a pathway to resentencing for prior marijuana convictions and allow medical cannabis access in hospitals for seriously ill patients.<\/p>\n Lawmakers in both chambers on Monday advanced a pair of companion bills, with amendments, that would provide a pathway to resentencing for people with prior marijuana convictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Members of the Senate and House Courts of Justice Committees on Monday approved substitute versions of the opposite chamber\u2019s reform legislation, making certain revisions that set the stage for bicameral negotiations as the measures move forward in the legislative process.<\/p>\n The legislation as introduced in both chambers would create a process by which people who are incarcerated or on community supervision for certain felony offenses involving the possession, manufacture, selling or distribution of marijuana could receive an automatic hearing to consider modification of their sentences.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, the Virginia House this month approved a bill to\u00a0protect the rights of parents who use marijuana in compliance with state law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under the proposal from Del. Nadarius Clark (D), possession of use of cannabis by a parent or guardian on its own \u201cshall not serve as a basis to deem a child abused or neglected unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption causes or creates a risk of physical or mental injury to the child.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA person\u2019s legal possession or consumption of substances authorized under [the state\u2019s marijuana law] alone shall not serve as a basis to restrict custody or visitation unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption is not in the best interest of the child,\u201d the text of the bill,\u00a0HB 942, states.<\/p>\n Separately, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry recently published a new\u00a0outlining workplace protections for cannabis consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Virginia Legislation To Let Patients Use Medical Marijuana In Hospitals Set For Governor\u2019s Decision<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Virginia lawmakers have taken more steps toward enacting legislation that would let certain patients use medical marijuana in hospitals, teeing up the reform to be sent to the governor\u2019s desk imminently. On Monday, the Senate signed off on the House of Delegates\u2019s changes to SB 332, sponsored by from Sen.Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":85568,"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\/85567"}],"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=85567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85569,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85567\/revisions\/85569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Virginia Legislation To Let Patients Use Medical Marijuana In Hospitals Set For Governor\u2019s Decision<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"