PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Pennsylvania Senate committee advanced a series of bills that would make significant changes to the state’s medical marijuana laws.
The chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, Republican Mike Regan, says the goal of his bill is to better serve the patients who rely on medical marijuana — “to reduce the cost and burden on patients through such efforts as eliminating the expiration of medical ID cards and the list of serious medical conditions.”
Regan says it should be up to a doctor if marijuana is the best treatment, and limiting it to a predetermined list of conditions only gets in the way of the doctor-patient relationship.
“Nowhere else do we dictate to doctors what conditions a patient must have for them to prescribe medication,” Regan said.
Another bill advanced by the committee, from Republican Dan Laughlin, would allow Pennsylvania medical marijuana dispensaries to sell edibles. Laughlin says edibles are helpful for patients who need gradual relief over an extended period of time.
“Consuming medical cannabis in edible form is among the best ways to achieve the time release effect that these patients need,” he said.
And while those patients could make their own edibles, Laughlin says, it’s a difficult process.
“Patients may not evenly disperse the active ingredients throughout their food, which impairs their ability to get uniform relief from their symptoms. It can also cause patients to accidentally consume too much or too little of their medical cannabis,” he said.
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His bill would also require testing for consistency and potency along with what he calls strict regulations on labeling and packaging to prevent accidental use.
The bills passed committee by a bipartisan vote and go next to the full Senate for consideration.
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