NC’s medical marijuana bill could be the nation’s strictest. That’s not a good thing.
North Carolina lawmakers have done something pretty monumental: they’ve passed a medical marijuana bill with bipartisan support.
Senate Bill 711, titled the “NC Compassionate Care Act,” passed the state Senate 35-10 on Thursday, more than a year after it was first introduced.
“This is a medical cannabis bill,” Sen. Paul Lowe (D-Forsyth), one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said on the Senate floor Thursday. “It’s not recreational. It does not do all of the things a recreational bill would do, and that’s for another day. But right now, I believe this bill will help some North Carolinians.”
Democrats have spent years advocating for medical marijuana legislation, an effort that often seemed futile in a Republican-dominated legislature. But in 2021, the notion finally began to pick up support from key GOP senators.
If this measure passes the House and becomes law, North Carolina would join 37 other states that already allow the medical use of cannabis products. Patients and doctors say that it’s life-changing: it can alleviate symptoms with relatively low risk and minimal side effects.
But North Carolina’s law would likely be the strictest in the country — something the bill’s sponsors are quick to point out when arguing in favor of it.
The list of conditions covered by the bill — cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, among others — is quite limited. Other debilitating medical conditions, such as anxiety and chronic pain, are left out, despite being covered by medical marijuana laws in other states.
Democratic lawmakers tried to expand the list of conditions at various committee hearings over the course of the past year. They were unsuccessful, however, because Republicans feared that it would be too vague and inadvertently allow people to obtain weed for non-medical use — as if letting people smoke weed is the worst thing that could happen.
It’s not.
Many opponents of marijuana legalization argue that it is a danger to the public. The Christian Action League of North Carolina, which opposes SB 711, said it would “dress up an illicit mind-altering product to appear as something good.”
“A lot of folks have expressed to me the dangers of marijuana to teenagers,” Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover), another one of the bill’s sponsors, said last year. “I agree with them. Recreational marijuana is not what we want in our state.”
Why not? Marijuana is safer than tobacco and alcohol, both of which are legal. A handful of states, such as Colorado, have legalized marijuana for both recreational and medical purposes. They haven’t paid a high price. It hasn’t led to more traffic deaths. It hasn’t increased high school dropout rates, nor has it led to an increase in marijuana use among young people. It has, however, generated billions of dollars for the economy.
Marijuana is everywhere, even in states that criminalize it. Nearly half of U.S. adults say they have tried marijuana at one point or another, and the number of Americans who say they currently smoke marijuana is nearly as high as the number of Americans who say they smoke cigarettes. People can already obtain marijuana quite easily, including by simply traveling north to Virginia or Washington, D.C.
Legalizing cannabis, whether it’s for medical or recreational use, is hardly an endorsement of drugs or drug use. It’s simply recognizing the fact that there’s already a significant market for a product that appears to be no worse than alcohol, so we might as well find a way to tap into it. Doing so also makes it safer: quality control can ensure that the product isn’t contaminated or laced with something more hazardous.
The strictest medical marijuana legislation in the country isn’t going to protect North Carolina from the “dangers of marijuana.” But it is going to help fewer people who need it, and leave a whole lot of money on the table.
This story was originally published June 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NC’s medical marijuana bill could be the nation’s strictest. That’s not a good thing.."
