Two lawmakers have announced plans for legislation that would strip the state’s Medical Marijuana Advisory Board of one of its main functions – determining what serious medical conditions entitle patients to legally use marijuana products.
Under the proposal, patients would be entitled to use marijuana for any medical condition if their doctors determine they could benefit from it.
In a cosponsor memo, Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland, and Sen. James Brewster, D-Allegheny, said that “elected officials and bureaucratic staffers should not be deciding what ailment qualifies an individual to use medical marijuana.”
The proposal from Mr. Regan and would be similar to the medical marijuana rules in Oklahoma. The Marijuana Policy Project says almost 10% of Oklahoma’s population were medical marijuana patients in 2021. If that percentage were repeated in Pennsylvania, there’d be about 1.2 million medical marijuana patients.