House Bill 2610: Medical Marajuana Act



House Bill 2610: Medical Marijuana Act

Jill Collins, RN BSN

Washburn University

Healthcare Policy, Finance & Organization

NU 508

Dr. Patzel and Dr. Hornberger

March 21, 2010

House Bill 2610: Medical Marijuana Act

Bill Overview

House Bill No. 2610, also known as the medical marijuana act, is a bill brought forth by legislators legalizing the use of marijuana for certain debilitating diseases. There are also a few other goals of the bill including providing for the registration and functions of compassion centers, authorizing the issuance of identification cards, and providing for the administration of the act by the state department of health and environment. As discussed in the bill, which can be found at , marijuana has been shown in modern medical research to be very beneficial in alleviating pain, nausea, and other symptoms in certain debilitating diseases. Marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legalized by fourteen other states in the United States to date. Although marijuana is not legal under federal law except for very limited circumstances, states are not required to enforce federal law or prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by federal law. The bill does require state law to distinguish between medical and recreational uses of marijuana in order to protect practitioners who prescribe it and those patients whose diagnoses benefit from the utilization of marijuana.

Hearing Overview

This session was an informational session requested by Representative Finney to better educate the House Health and Human Services Committee on the benefits of marijuana for medicinal purposes. I don’t believe to this point there has been a hearing on this bill. There were several presenters quite upset about this fact. Being an informational session, all speakers were in favor of the bill. I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Craig Gunther, a lobbyist for the Kansas State Nurses Association, who stated the association would be in support of the bill. There were thirteen people who had requested to present but due to time constraints on eleven people were able to present. Several of the presenters were people who suffered from debilitating illnesses who felt they would benefit from the medicinal effects of marijuana including a woman with multiple sclerosis, a gentleman with chronic pain and a young man with cerebral palsy. Perhaps the most moving presentation was given by a man whose sixteen year old daughter died of bone cancer. At the time of her death, she was on five different narcotic pain medications and five different antiemetics. He discussed not only the financial impact caused by the need for multiple medications but also the fact that his daughter lived like a “zombie” on the medications and he would have preferred her to just be able to be “stoned” instead.

Also presenting was an attorney who talked about how it would be beneficial cost wise to the state to no longer need to prosecute for the manufacturing of marijuana and be able to concentrate their efforts on drugs which are more dangerous to the public. He also discussed how many prescription narcotics that we use today are derived from cocaine, heroin and amphetamines and how this could pose more problems for patients than marijuana. Another speaker also pointed out how we don’t always know the potential side effects or adverse reactions prescription drugs will cause when put on the market but marijuana has been around for years and the adverse/side effects are well known. One lady presented how the legalization of marijuana would provide great potential income for the state in the form of taxation.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this session very informative. I was, however, somewhat disappointed in the representatives for our state. At least half of the legislators left the session without listening to even half of the people presenting. I feel that using marijuana for medicinal purposes could be very beneficial to some people and much more cost effective than prescription narcotics. I can’t help but wonder if this is part of the reason that the movement toward marijuana for medicinal purposes has not been legalized in more states. Is it in part to drug companies being able to prevent this with large amounts of funding? It seems to me that legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes would be beneficial to both patients and to the state.

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