Louisiana Set to be the Twenty-Fifth State to Legalize Medical Marijuana

Louisiana is now set to become the twenty-fifth state in the United States to fully implement a legal medical cannabis program. Earlier this week, the Louisiana Senate voted along with the House of Representatives with a bill (Senate Bill 271) with the goal of creating a working medical cannabis law out of legislation that has been being proposed for about forty years now. The bill is now going to be sent to Governor John Bel Edwards. People say that he is going to sign the bill into law without a moment’s thought.

Louisiana’s approach is not like other states that have approved legislation the legalize medical marijuana. Instead, Louisiana’s newest decisions have not really gained a lot of attention from those who favor cannabis reform. This is because the proposal is more expansionary than anything used to fully give patients medical marijuana. But the bill is still going to make a program that will be just as efficient if not more than other medical programs we have seen come up throughout the years in the United States

Senator Fred Mills proposed the measure, which gets rid of an existing medical cannabis law that was passed in the 1970s; one that never was passed because it went against the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Controlled Substances Act by to giving out medical cannabis instead of giving recommendations. However, with just a few edits, Senate Bill 271 gets rid of the prescription feature and instead allows doctors to recommend merely medical marijuana which would then allow patients to get marijuana.

Because of the law, patients that were suffering from the following medical conditions: “cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, cachexia or wasting syndrome, seizure disorders, epilepsy, spasticity, severe muscle spasms, Crohn’s disease, muscular dystrophy or multiple sclerosis,”  would be able to get medical marijuana so long as a doctor recommends it to them.