Pot Bill Gets Pulled as Republican Senators Pile on Amendments
by John Gage
State Senator John Cavanaugh pulled his bill from Select File that would provide immunity to doctors recommending medical marijuana after conservative lawmakers sought to make amendments to his bill that he opposed.
“We got close,” Cavanaugh said late Tuesday night during debate on the Legislature’s floor. “But in the interest and respect of what the speaker has asked that we get through more of this agenda, I’m going to ask the speaker to pull this bill so that we don’t spend more time on a bill that does not achieve the goal of making a functioning medical cannabis program available to the sick Nebraskans.”
The bill, LB933, had previously advanced 30-7 on General File. The bill appeared to lack support from the body to break a filibuster, with state senators telling The Plains Sentinel that Cavanaugh did not have 33 votes with how the bill was written.
Cavanaugh’s decision to pull his bill came after Republican state senators filed amendments he opposed onto his bill, including one amendment by State Senator Kathleen Kauth that successfully got attached that would require doctors who recommend medical marijuana to do so “based upon a preponderance of the current scientific evidence.”
Kauth additionally brought an amendment that would have attached her bill to ban children's access to puberty blockers. As soon as the debate started on the amendment, Cavanaugh pulled his bill.
Conservative lawmakers argued during both rounds of debate that Cavanaugh’s bill would lead to Nebraska functionally having recreational marijuana. State Senator Brian Hardin said Cavanaugh had based his bill on Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program, which he said was "One of the most permissive in the U.S.”
“If you want a system as broken as the one in Oklahoma,” Hardin said. “Then you start with a situation with no accountability.”
State Senator George Dungan said he thought opponents of the bill were being “disingenuous.” “[They] want to hamper access to medical marijuana,” he said, arguing that doctors were afraid of retribution from opponents of marijuana in the Legislature.
“Doctors are terrified of recommending it,” he added. “Because there is a hostile entity… They know there are actors out there ready to get them if they do give a recommendation.”
During debate on the floor, State Senator Ben Hansen, who supported LB933, referenced a letter from the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys, saying they supported Cavanaugh’s bill. The letter from the group’s president-elect, Elizabeth Govaerts, said the bill “sets forth specific baseline considerations for the prescription of medical cannabis adding an extra layer of patient protection consistent with the Nebraska statutory guidance for the prescription of opiates.”
State Senator Dan Lonowski said that it is possible the group supported the bill because they would like to see more litigation. “Of course the trial attorneys would be for this. They might have more trials to defend,” he said.
Cavanaugh’s measure was supported by Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, who ran the two ballot petitions to get medical marijuana on the state ballot. The group called the bill “foundational infrastructure” for an operational medical marijuana program in Nebraska.
John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.
