Mississippi House Approves Bill To To Allow Medical Marijuana Use In Hospitals For Terminally Ill Patients

The Mississippi House of Representatives has approved a bill to allow
terminally ill patients to access medical marijuana in hospitals, nursing
facilities and hospice centers.

About a week after advancing out of the House Public Health and Human
Services Committee, the full chamber passed the legislation from Rep. Kevin
Felsher (R) in a 117-1 vote on Wednesday.

Known as “Ryan’s Law,” an acknowledgement of a young cannabis patient who
passed and whose father has since become an advocate for access in hospital
settings, the bill is meant to “support the ability of terminally ill
qualifying patients to safely use medical cannabis within specified health
care facilities.”

“Ryan’s Law is rooted in one simple principle: at the end of life,
compassion and medical judgment should come before bureaucracy,” Felsher
said on the floor before the vote. “This legislation will allow terminally
ill qualifying patients to safely use medical cannabis within a specific
healthcare facility, including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and
hospice facilities.”

The legislation would require hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and
hospice centers to “allow terminally ill qualifying patients in the
facility to use medical cannabis” in forms other than smoking or vaping.

There’s also another carve-out in the legislation stipulating that, if a
federal agency such as the Justice Department or the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services takes enforcement action against a health facility
over the cannabis policy change or issues guidance explicitly prohibiting
the reform from being implemented, that facility may suspend compliance
with the state law until the federal issue is resolved.

Short of that, under HB 1034, patients or their caregivers would be
“responsible for acquiring, retrieving, administering and removing medical
cannabis,” the legislation summary says. Medical marijuana products would
need to be “stored securely at all times in a locked container in the
patient’s room or other designated area.”

Health professionals and facility staff would be prohibited from
administering or retrieving the cannabis from storage. And after a patient
is discharged, “all remaining medical cannabis must be removed by the
patient or patient’s designated caregiver.”

Activists hope to see the law widely enacted across the U.S. to ensure that
patients, particularly those with terminal illnesses, are able to legally
utilize cannabis. California and Minnesota have already moved forward with
the policy change.


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Meanwhile in Mississippi, the House on Wednesday also approved a bill from
Rep. Lee Yancey (R) that would remove the THC limit on non-combustable
cannabis products and extend the validity of patient registrations for
residents to two years (and non-residents to 90 days) before they’d have to
be renewed.

Also in the state, lawmakers recently approved legislation to support
research in hopes of gaining federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approval for the psychedelic ibogaine as a novel treatment option.

*Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.*

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In Hospitals For Terminally Ill Patients appeared first on Marijuana Moment.