The North Carolina Compassionate Care Act was adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, February 21, and will now proceed to the Senate Finance Committee.
The law, also known as Senate Bill 3, contains some of the nation’s harshest medicinal marijuana regulations.
Particularly, it specifies who can cultivate and sell in the state, creates new commissions to monitor corporations that cultivate and distribute, and tightens prescription rules.
The medical problems that would qualify for these prescriptions must also meet stringent criteria, such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, and sickle cell anemia.
Also, state officials wished to clarify what this bill is and is not designed for.
“It will only make modifications to existing state law that are necessary to safeguard patients and their doctors from criminal and civil penalties and has no intention of altering the current civil and criminal rules governing the recreational use of marijuana. Senator Bill Rabon (R-District 8), one of the bill’s key backers, remarked, “That’s it.”
The inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the efficacy of cannabis as a treatment for this disease has been hotly debated issue surrounding the bill.
Senator Rachel Hunt (D-District 42) urged legislators, “I would recommend that at a later date, we examine methods in which veterans might make greater use of this drug.”
Because the last attempt to pass this bill failed in the state House, legislators are beginning from scratch in the hopes of achieving success this time.
