Restrictive Senate Amendment to House Medical Cannabidiol Bill

After months of say­ing the 3% THC cap would nev­er be lift­ed unless the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Advi­so­ry Board rec­om­mend­ed lift­ing it, the Iowa House mys­te­ri­ous­ly decid­ed to lift the 3% cap on THC just days before the leg­isla­tive fun­nel dead­line on March 8.  House File 732 (med­ical cannabid­i­ol) was intro­duced on March 6, vot­ed out of sub­com­mit­tee on March 6, and vot­ed out of com­mit­tee on March 7.  See, “What real­ly hap­pened last week with the med­ical cannabid­i­ol bill”, Bleed­ing Heart­land, April 1

On March 26 the Iowa House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly, by a vote of 96–3, in favor of HF 732.  HF 732 was imme­di­ate­ly mes­saged to the Iowa Sen­ate where it was referred to the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee.  A Sen­ate sub­com­mit­tee met on April 1 and rec­om­mend­ed pas­sage with­out amend­ment.  Those in atten­dance at the Sen­ate sub­com­mit­tee hear­ing were told that any changes would kill the bill in the Iowa House and no amend­ments would be allowed.

How­ev­er, when the bill was con­sid­ered by the full com­mit­tee on April 4, the com­mit­tee passed an amend­ment, S‑3124, on a staight par­ty vote of 9 Repub­li­cans to 5 Democ­rats and then rec­om­mend­ed pas­sage with amend­ment by a vote of 13–1.  This might change the sit­u­a­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly.  Fur­ther amend­ments might now be filed in the Sen­ate, and the House will like­ly be con­sid­er­ing an amend­ed ver­sion of HF 732 which might be amend­ed fur­ther in the House.  Fas­ten your seat belts.

Med­ical cannabis leg­is­la­tion has nev­er been an easy task in Iowa.  Nego­ti­a­tions are typ­i­cal­ly not com­plet­ed until the last day of the ses­sion and then only dur­ing over­time.  Sen­ate File 2360 (Iowa Code Chap­ter 124D) was final­ly nego­ti­at­ed around 3:00 a.m. on May 1, 2014; and House File 524 (Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E) was final­ly nego­ti­at­ed around 5:00 a.m. on April 21, 2017.

To help us under­stand what is going on we need to know some his­to­ry on the efforts of the cur­rent Chair of the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tor Brad Zaun.  Sen­a­tor Zaun is a med­ical cannabis advo­cate.  A time line will help with our under­stand­ing.

April 15, 2015:

Sen­a­tor Zaun was the only Repub­li­can to vote for Sen­ate File 484 (med­ical cannabis), which passed in the Iowa Sen­ate by a vote of 26–19.  26 votes are need­ed to obtain a con­sti­tu­tion­al major­i­ty in the Iowa Sen­ate.  SF 484 did not pass in the Iowa House.

April 17, 2017:

The Iowa Sen­ate vot­ed 45–5 for Sen­ate File 506 (med­ical cannabis).  Sen­a­tor Zaun vot­ed with the major­i­ty.  SF 506 did not pass in the Iowa House.

Jan­u­ary 22, 2019:

Sen­a­tor Zaun intro­duced Sen­ate File 77 (med­ical cannabid­i­ol), which pro­posed chang­ing the THC cap from 3% to 13%.  A sub­com­mit­tee approved SF 77 on Jan­u­ary 31, but no fur­ther action was tak­en on it.

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2019:

Sen­a­tor Zaun intro­duced Sen­ate File 256 (med­ical cannabid­i­ol), which left the THC cap at 3%.  A sub­com­mit­tee approved SF 256 on Feb­ru­ary 18 and on March 5 the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee passed SF 256 with an amend­ment on fed­er­al­ism.  The amend­ment to SF 256 passed by a vote of 14–1.

March 6, 2019:

SF 256 as amend­ed was intro­duced as Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee bill Sen­ate File 501.

What does it all mean?

Con­sid­er­ing that Sen­a­tor Zaun pro­posed rais­ing the THC lim­it to 13% and then backed off to the cur­rent 3%, it’s no sur­prise that on April 4 when the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee received HF 732 with no lim­it on THC, the com­mit­tee amend­ed it by strik­ing that sec­tion and replac­ing it with the cur­rent 3% cap on THC.  How­ev­er, the com­mit­tee did not strike the 25 grams of THC per 90-day lim­it.  So, HF 732 now is more restric­tive than cur­rent law regard­ing THC.  Obvi­ous­ly, this is a dra­mat­ic change from what the Iowa House passed.

It’s uncer­tain what the future holds for HF 732.  It could be amend­ed if it gets debat­ed on the Sen­ate floor.  It could be amend­ed if it gets debat­ed on the House floor (if the Sen­ate pass­es it with the amend­ment and sends it back to the House).  Cer­tain com­mit­tees and lead­er­ship can still file bills, so we could still see a dif­fer­ent bill emerge before the ses­sion ends.

Per­haps there is still time for a very impor­tant amend­ment on fed­er­al­ism that got lost in all of this mys­te­ri­ous activ­i­ty.  Here it is again, for those who are con­cerned about con­sis­ten­cy between state and fed­er­al law.

Please add the same lan­guage to HF 732.

House File 732
1	Amend File 732 as fol­lows:
2	1.  Page 2, after line 18 by insert­ing:
3	<Sec. ___.  NEW SECTION.  124E.20  Fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions not
4	applic­a­ble.
5	Notwith­stand­ing any fed­er­al reg­u­la­tion to the con­trary, the
6	use of med­ical cannabid­i­ol pur­suant to this chap­ter is not
7	sub­ject to fed­er­al reg­u­la­tion.>
8	2.  By renum­ber­ing as nec­es­sary.

Stay tuned!