Pharmacy board hearing on August 27, 2014

Wednes­day, August 27, 2014, approx­i­mate­ly 9:39 a.m.

Board mem­bers present: Susan Frey (tem­po­rary chair, licensed phar­ma­cist), LaDon­na Gra­tias (pub­lic mem­ber), Edward Maier (chair, licensed phar­ma­cist), Edward McKen­na (licensed phar­ma­cist), Sharon Mey­er (licensed phar­ma­cist), Judith M. Trumpy (pub­lic mem­ber). Board mem­ber absent: James Miller (licensed phar­ma­cist).

Susan Frey: Next up we have 4.4 and that is a peti­tion for agency action for mar­i­jua­na sched­ul­ing from Carl Olsen.

Carl Olsen: Yes.

Susan Frey: You’re here.

Carl Olsen: Are you ready?

Susan Frey: I’m ready.

Carl Olsen: Alright. My name is Carl Olsen. I would like the board to rec­om­mend the Iowa leg­is­la­ture remove mar­i­jua­na from Sched­ule 1. The code sec­tions are Iowa Code Chap­ter 124 Sec­tion 201 and 124.203. Under those sec­tions the board has the author­i­ty to rec­om­mend the leg­is­la­ture remove mar­i­jua­na from Sched­ule 1. I made this rec­om­men­da­tion last year. I made this rec­om­men­da­tion sev­er­al times, this request. But, par­tic­u­lar­ly last year I made this same request. At that time there were nine­teen (19) states that had legal­ized the med­ical use of mar­i­jua­na. As of today there are twen­ty-three (23). And as of this year anoth­er eleven (11) have enact­ed cannabis oil bills, like Iowa enact­ed this year, that require peo­ple to leave the state of Iowa, go to anoth­er state where they can obtain this oil, one of the states where it is autho­rized to pro­duce the cannabis, and then bring it back to Iowa, which vio­lates state and fed­er­al laws all the way through.

Remov­ing mar­i­jua­na from Sched­ule 1 would be an impor­tant step in a big obsta­cle, fed­er­al Sched­ule 1. The board has the author­i­ty to rec­om­mend that mar­i­jua­na be removed from state Sched­ule 1. That would be an impor­tant first step in send­ing an impor­tant mes­sage to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that there’s a big prob­lem with Sched­ule 1 and the imple­men­ta­tion of these state laws. We’ve got thir­ty-four (34) states now and last year when I was here it was only nine­teen (19). So, you can see how rapid­ly this is mov­ing for­ward. I don’t think the board can say this is not a valid con­cern, or that the board should not be say­ing, be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the leg­isla­tive process as required by the Iowa Code.

Thank you.

Susan Frey: Any com­ments from board mem­bers? Thoughts?

And, we’re hand­ing out an arti­cle from the Des Moines Reg­is­ter today, or yes­ter­day August 26th, on the cannabis oil.

Carl Olsen: Yeah, there was a hear­ing held yes­ter­day in the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health on that.

Sharon Mey­er: You would like a rec­om­men­da­tion from the board to the sched­ule. Here, it’s say­ing the fam­i­ly could find an out of state sup­pli­er. It would be imple­ment­ed, … Sor­ry, got on the wrong para­graph. It says peo­ple are frus­trat­ed by the pace of the imple­men­ta­tion and the oil is not avail­able. Are you say­ing that we need to make a state­ment to the leg­is­la­ture?

Carl Olsen: I don’t think the leg­is­la­ture under­stands the tech­ni­cal nature of the five (5) sched­ules, and I think the board does. And I think they need the assis­tance of the board with that par­tic­u­lar issue. It’s obvi­ous they want to do some­thing. And, it’s obvi­ous that they’ve start­ed to move for­ward. But, I don’t think they under­stand how impor­tant the sched­ul­ing is. Sched­ule 1 says no accept­ed med­ical use in treat­ment in the Unit­ed States, and that is just not the case. It has accept­ed med­ical use in thir­ty-four (34) states. Why the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has­n’t moved it out of Sched­ule 1 I can’t say. But this board rec­om­mend­ed it be removed from state sched­ule 1 in 2010. And, I think the board should con­tin­ue to stand behind that and not let the leg­is­la­ture think that you’ve changed your mind, or that you’re not inter­est­ed any­more, or … I’ve heard that com­ment from leg­is­la­tors, like, “What’s hap­pened with the board of phar­ma­cy? Why are they back­ing out on this?” So, I think there’s real dam­age there.

Ed Maier: Madam chair, this is Ed. I think a cou­ple of us that looked through this in 2010, I think this is impor­tant enough, if we can, I think we should maybe some­how dis­cuss, whether we appoint a com­mit­tee, or send it to rules com­mit­tee to talk about, or what­ev­er, for some rec­om­men­da­tions, and talk. I think it’s impor­tant, what­ev­er we do, that we have a sol­id cut mes­sage that the peo­ple under­stand. Last time, we were total­ly mis­un­der­stood, exact­ly what was hap­pen­ing. I don’t know that, I guess I might rec­om­mend that we some­how study this and that we take it up at the next meet­ing if that’s pos­si­ble.

Susan Frey: Well, you’ve been… I was not aware of the recent hear­ing. I guess I would like to, you know, look at some of that infor­ma­tion and incor­po­rate that. I think, you know, I would cer­tain­ly be will­ing to estab­lish a study group.

Carl Olsen: I par­tic­i­pat­ed in that hear­ing yes­ter­day and they said they would give me all, every­thing that was sub­mit­ted, and a record­ing of the hear­ing and all of that.

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: Just to clar­i­fy, that hear­ing was their pro­posed rules.

Carl Olsen: Yeah.

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: for the cannabid­i­ol pro­gram, cor­rect?

Carl Olsen: Right. And there were a lot of com­ments that weren’t… did­n’t stay con­fined to that and they kept say­ing you’ll have to talk to the leg­is­la­tors about. But, any­way, it was all…

Susan Frey: And, I mean… If they’re talk­ing about rules, that will set a prece­dent also, so I think that’s prob­a­bly some­thing that we need to, you know, look into a lit­tle deep­er, fur­ther. So, I would enter­tain a motion to form a…

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: You want to refer it to a com­mitt­tee, or form a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee?

Susan Frey: Well, Ed sug­gest­ed… Ed, do you want to go to rules com­mit­tee with that or do you want a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee?

Ed Maier: You know, I’m not sure. I don’t know where the rules com­mit­tee is now. I know that they have a con­sid­er­able amount of work that they’re doing on leg­is­la­tion and oth­er things, so I might defer to some­body on the rules com­mit­tee as to whether they would pre­fer that. Or, do we pre­fer a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee that would take a look at all of the new things that have hap­pened and try to make some sort of rec­om­men­da­tion>

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: Do you antic­i­pate hav­ing some­thing ready to present a leg­isla­tive pro­pos­al this year? Because the dead­line for that is the end of Novem­ber.

Ed Maier: The end of Novem­ber?

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: Yes. Real­ly by Thanks­giv­ing we have to have it sub­mit­ted. It would have to go to, you’d have to have a leg­is­la­tor to present it.

Ed Maier: So, Ter­ry, if we were to defer it and take action one way or the oth­er at our next meet­ing, would that be too late? Or, is that push­ing it?

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: You could, if we had a pro­pos­al ready for the next board meet­ing, that would be time­ly.

Ed Maier: Okay. I think that’s prob­a­bly what we need to do. Either rules,… Rules is real­ly, real­ly busy, and I know they have been, but, you know, maybe a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee, a small com­mit­tee that could take a look at this stuff and then get togeth­er and just decide on a rec­om­men­da­tion.

Ed McKen­na: Being on the rules com­mit­tee I would prob­a­bly agree with Ed that we should have a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee and get more input from oth­er peo­ple.

Susan Frey: I would agree.

Ed McKen­na: I know we have a lot of sep­a­rate com­mit­tees, but…

Susan Frey: Okay, well…

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: Ed, did you want to be on that com­mit­tee? Or, chair that com­mit­tee?

Ed Maier: Let me…

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: You have the his­to­ry, so I’m think­ing that that might be, you know, it would be a good thing to have some­body with that…

Ed Maier: Yes, Yeah, I would do that.

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: You can read all the cas­es you want this week­end.

(LAUGHTER)

Ed Maier: You got it Ter­ry.

Lloyd Jessen: Why don’t we have a motion then to form a com­mit­tee with Ed as chair and then I’ll work with Ed so,…

Ed Maier: There you go. We’ll work togeth­er to put a com­mit­tee togeth­er here and get it tak­en care of.

Ter­ry Witkows­ki: Ask the board mem­bers to see if any­body’s inter­est­ed, too.

Lloyd Jessen: Yeah, we can do that.

Sharon Mey­er: So moved.

Susan Frey: Okay, it’s been moved. Do I have a sec­ond?

Ed McKen­na: Sec­ond.

Susan Frey: Okay, it’s been moved and sec­ond­ed to form a com­mit­tee to review the peti­tion on agency action for mar­i­jua­na sched­ul­ing with a, to bring it back at our Novem­ber meet­ing. All of those in favor say aye. Want a role call vote?

Ed Maier: Maier, aye.

LaDon­na Gra­tias: Gra­tias, aye.

Ed McKen­na: Aye.

Sharon Mey­er: Mey­er, aye.

Judith M. Trumpy: Trumpy, aye.

Susan Frey: Frey, aye. All those opposed? Motion car­ries.

Carl Olsen: Well, I have to get back to work, but thank you all. You guys are awe­some. I’ll see you lat­er.