It’s Not Over Yet

There has been a lot of par­ti­san bick­er­ing in the Iowa leg­is­la­ture over med­ical mar­i­jua­na this year, and it’s not over yet.  Since Iowa enact­ed a med­ical cannabis extract law (2015 Iowa Code Chap­ter 124D — Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Act) last year, no one has been able to obtain it legal­ly.  Cannabid­i­ol is not approved by the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) and can­not be obtained legal­ly any­where in the Unit­ed States.  So, the ques­tion is when a state enacts a law accept­ing the med­ical use of some­thing that is not approved by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, how does that work?

You’ll have to admit, this does­n’t hap­pen very often.  With­out a thor­ough under­stand­ing of the foun­da­tions of the inter­na­tion­al, fed­er­al, and state drug laws, it’s a dif­fi­cult ques­tion to answer.  The answer lies, how­ev­er, in the prefa­to­ry notes in the Uni­form Con­trolled Sub­stances Act, “Legit­i­mate use of con­trolled sub­stances is essen­tial for pub­lic health and safe­ty, and the avail­abil­i­ty of these sub­stances must be assured.”

Iowa Democ­rats have been pro­mot­ing the cul­ti­va­tion and use of mar­i­jua­na for med­ical pur­pos­es here in Iowa.  A phrase you’ll often hear at the Capi­tol is, “Twen­ty-three states have already done this and Iowa does not need to rein­vent the wheel.”  But, is it real­ly that sim­ple?  Have twen­ty-three states actu­al­ly fig­ured this out, or do we need to rein­vent the wheel?

My opin­ion is that until states part­ner with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, a safe and reg­u­lat­ed sup­ply of med­ical cannabis will not hap­pen and patients will be at risk.  Major pro­fes­sion­al med­ical orga­ni­za­tions (the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy and the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics) have already begun to ask the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to coop­er­ate by remov­ing mar­i­jua­na from the restric­tive fed­er­al clas­si­fi­ca­tion that says it’s not med­i­cine any­where in the Unit­ed States.  Real­ly?  I thought there were twen­ty-three states that had accept­ed it.

I think it’s time we had a seri­ous dis­cus­sion with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, but I don’t think major pro­fes­sion­al med­ical orga­ni­za­tions car­ry as much weight as state gov­ern­ments.  After all, what is the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment?  Isn’t the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment just a union of states?  I thought so.  I think that’s what I learned in school.

When I talked to my state sen­a­tor, Jack Whitver, he agreed to give this approach a try.  Sen­a­tor Whitver is a Repub­li­can and an attor­ney by pro­fes­sion.  He under­stands law.  So, I have a unique sit­u­a­tion.  My sen­a­tor under­stands law and I have a legal argu­ment.  We actu­al­ly speak the same lan­guage.  How­ev­er, when he tried to get the oth­er Repub­li­cans to sign on to it, the Sen­ate Repub­li­can Cau­cus refused and came up with a defec­tive plan to trade the Democ­rats noth­ing for some­thing.  The details fol­low.

The sto­ry begins on April 15, 2015, with Sen­ate Amend­ment S‑3126 (a pro­pos­al to change mar­i­jua­na’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion in Iowa) offered by the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans in return for strik­ing the entire Med­ical Cannabis Act, SF 484, pro­posed by the Democ­rats.  Chang­ing the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of mar­i­jua­na in Iowa with­out chang­ing it at the fed­er­al lev­el does absolute­ly noth­ing.  It might be good sym­bol­ism and that’s a good rea­son to do it, but in real­i­ty it does absolute­ly noth­ing for sick and injured peo­ple.  It was not a good deal (noth­ing for some­thing) and the Sen­ate vot­ed it down (thanks for noth­ing, Repub­li­cans).  Here is a break­down of the votes on S‑3126 by par­ty: 19 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Aye; 5 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Absent; 1 Sen­ate Demo­c­rat — Aye; 24 Sen­ate Democ­rats — Nay; 1 Sen­ate Demo­c­rat – Absent.

After that bogus deal, the Sen­ate Democ­rats offered Sen­ate Amend­ment S‑3123 (a pro­pos­al to change mar­i­jua­na’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion in Iowa) offered as an addi­tion to the Med­ical Cannabis Act, SF 484, pro­posed by the Democ­rats.  Reclas­si­fi­ca­tion does noth­ing, but it’s nice sym­bol­ism and goes along nice­ly with the Med­ical Cannabis Act, SF 484.  The Sen­ate vot­ed to adopt S‑3123 unan­i­mous­ly.  Here is a break­down of the votes on S‑2123 by par­ty: 19 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Aye; 5 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Absent; 25 Sen­ate Democ­rats — Aye; 1 Sen­ate Demo­c­rat – Absent.

Stop now and real­ize that every Demo­c­rat and every Repub­li­can just agreed that mar­i­jua­na is med­i­cine.  Think about that for a moment, or longer if you have time.

How­ev­er, the vote on the Med­ical Cannabis Act was divid­ed again.  Here is a break­down of the votes on SF 484 by par­ty: 1 Sen­ate Repub­li­can — Aye; 18 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Nay; 5 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Absent; 25 Sen­ate Democ­rats — Aye; 1 Sen­ate Demo­c­rat — Nay.  You can see that a sin­gle Repub­li­can (thank you, Sen­a­tor Zaun) gave the Democ­rats enough votes to bare­ly squeak this one through.  SF 484 was then assigned to the House Com­mit­tee on Pub­lic Safe­ty to die.

Not will­ing to go down easy, on May 5, 2015, the Sen­ate Democ­rats pro­posed amend­ment S‑3148 (reclas­si­fy­ing mar­i­jua­na as med­i­cine) to HF 567 (adding syn­thet­ic poi­sons to the same clas­si­fi­ca­tion mar­i­jua­na is cur­rent­ly in).  The Sen­ate nar­row­ly adopt­ed the amend­ment and sent the bill back to the House (thank you, again and again, Sen­a­tor Zaun).  Here is a break­down of the votes on S‑3148 by par­ty: 1 Sen­ate Repub­li­can — Aye; 23 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Nay; 25 Sen­ate Democ­rats — Aye; 1 Sen­ate Demo­c­rat — Nay.  Here is a break­down of the votes on HF 567 by par­ty: 1 Sen­ate Repub­li­can — Aye; 23 Sen­ate Repub­li­cans — Nay; 26 Sen­ate Democ­rats — Aye.

So, the House Repub­li­cans got real­ly upset about HF 567 being amend­ed by the Sen­ate.  On May 20, 2015, House Repub­li­cans pro­posed an amend­ment H‑1365 (adding syn­thet­ic poi­sons to the same clas­si­fi­ca­tion mar­i­jua­na is cur­rent­ly in) to SF 510 (the stand­ing appro­pri­a­tions bill).  Not to be out­done, the House Democ­rats pro­pose their own amend­ment H‑1379 (legal­iz­ing med­ical mar­i­jua­na) to H‑1365.  Both amend­ments were ruled not ger­mane to the stand­ing appro­pri­a­tions bill, but the House Democ­rats were unable to sus­pend the rules to vote on their amend­ment while the House Repub­li­cans were able to suc­cess­ful­ly sus­pend the rules to vote on their amend­ment.  Here is a break­down of the votes to sus­pend the rules for H‑1379: 2 House Repub­li­cans — Aye; 53 House Repub­li­cans — Nay; 2 House Repub­li­cans — Absent; 41 House Democ­rats — Aye; 2 House Democ­rats — Absent.  Here is a break­down of the votes on H‑1365: 55 House Repub­li­cans — Aye; 2 House Repub­li­cans — Absent; 41 House Democ­rats — Nay; 2 House Democ­rats — Absent.

So, what does all of this mean?  We have SF 484 dead in the House.  We have HF 567 dead in the House.  We have SF 510 dead in the Sen­ate.  We know there will be a bud­get bill.  And, we know syn­thet­ic poi­son isn’t going to be ignored anoth­er year.  But, all the bills appear to be dead.

My state sen­a­tor, Sen­a­tor Whitver, tells me the House amend­ment, H‑1365 (adding syn­thet­ic pot to the list of con­trolled sub­stances and grant­i­ng a longer peri­od for tem­po­rary sched­ul­ing from 60 days to 2 years), to SF 510 (the bud­get appro­pri­a­tions bill) is prob­a­bly dead.  The sen­ate will not adopt the amend­ment.  He does not know exact­ly how the bud­get will be resolved, but it could go to a con­fer­ence com­mit­tee.

My state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Koester, tells me SF 484 can still be debat­ed in the House if there is a motion to sus­pend the rules, and it can still be tacked onto anoth­er bill as an amend­ment if it’s ger­mane, or by motion to sus­pend the rules if it’s not ger­mane.

So, every­thing is still on the table until the leg­is­la­ture adjourns.  If you sup­port SF 484, now is the time to get on down to the state Capi­tol and ask for a motion to sus­pend the rules to get this on the House floor for debate this year.  There’s not much time left.