{"id":23219,"date":"2018-02-09T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23219"},"modified":"2018-02-09T11:00:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T17:00:42","slug":"constitutional-amendment-would-legalize-medical-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23219","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional amendment would legalize medical cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legalization of medical cannabis would be placed on the ballot for voters\u2019 consideration under a measure presented to the Judiciary Committee Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Anna Wishart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LR293CA, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, would put the issue on the November 2018 general election ballot. A poll commissioned last year by the Marijuana Policy Project found that 77 percent of likely Nebraska voters would vote to legalize medical cannabis, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard overwhelming support from across the state, from moms dealing with their children\u2019s seizures, older people with arthritis, people with multiple sclerosis and cancer patients,\u201d she said. \u201cNebraskans deserve a chance to vote on this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

If approved by voters, people would have the right to use medical cannabis products\u2014regardless of their form\u2014to treat or relieve any medical condition or illness. Use of medical cannabis would be subject to any law, rule or regulation passed by the Legislature, as long as it would not infringe on people\u2019s right to consume.<\/p>\n

The state would not have to worry about federal drug laws pre-empting legalization at the state level, said ACLU of Nebraska Legal Director Amy Miller in support of the measure. She said concerns about a state marijuana law violating the federal Constitution are unfounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is strong case-law support that shows Congress has already chosen to leave this issue up to the states,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWhen Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, they already knew that Nebraska and 18 other states considered possession of less than an ounce of marijuana just an infraction and they did nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lia McDowell Post of Springfield also supported the proposed amendment. She said cannabis has helped her to manage her complex regional pain syndrome for a year, but by doing so she is technically committing a crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve given up drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, sugar, gluten, caffeine, my blood pressure medicine, my anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-epileptics, opioids and sedatives and I\u2019m still a criminal,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is time to come together and make a change to this archaic way of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2014 car accident that resulted in severe nerve damage, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and glaucoma made Joseph Guinan of Omaha a supporter of medical cannabis. He said he truly did not understand the benefits of cannabis until he experienced it firsthand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that there are families who are uprooting and moving to states that have legalized, no one just does that without a good reason,\u201d Guinan said. \u201cIf cannabis helps someone get through the day pain free and stress free, they should have access to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposing the measure was Ryan Post, representing the state attorney general. He disagreed that the state has the authority to legalize a substance currently prohibited by the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this constitutional amendment were passed by the Legislature and adopted by the voters, it would need to have enabling legislation,\u201d Post said. \u201cFederal law would preempt any legislation the Legislature would enact that is in conflict with the Controlled Substances Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Monica Oldenburg, an anesthesiologist in Lincoln, also opposed the measure. She said much of the marijuana available today has alarmingly high levels of tetrahydrocannabinols, the chemical compound responsible for marijuana\u2019s psychoactive effects.<\/p>\n

More research is needed on cannabis and its side effects, Oldenburg said, before the state can expect physicians to prescribe it with any measure of confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no good long-term studies on the effects of high potency marijuana and this bill has no provision to control THC levels,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The legalization of medical cannabis would be placed on the ballot for voters\u2019 consideration under a measure presented to the Judiciary Committee Feb. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[180],"class_list":["post-23219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-anna-wishart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23220,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23219\/revisions\/23220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}