Action Happening Now: Eight Amendments Filed, House Debate Calendar Schedule Show Cannabis Bill On Deck

Here is my summary of the eight amendments filed this morning. The House is currently debating medical cannabis bills. You can find your representative to contact and urge a yes vote on whatever Kim Reynolds dictator like statehouse claims is morally correct here this year.

These amendments are for House File 2589.

The following is my brief summary. Expect them explained and voted on soon. They are on the debate calendar today reportedly.

Amendment H-8119 is an amendment to increase medical card expiration dates for patient card holders from one year to three years, making renewal fees a reality every three years, a significant financial improvement and barrier to access for many Iowa patients. Amendment offered by Rep Gaskill of Wapello.

Amendment H-8120 increases the gram limitations for THC from four and one-half grams and replacing it with fifteen grams in the bill’s language. Here’s the amendment language in full:

House File 2589 H-8120 Amend House File 2589 as follows: 1 1. Page 3, line 23, by striking < four and one-half > and 2 inserting < fifteen > 3 2. Page 3, line 30, by striking < four and one-half > and 4 inserting < fifteen grams > 5 3. Page 4, lines 9 and 10, by striking < four and one-half > 6 and inserting < fifteen grams >

That amendment was by Representative Kressig.

The third amendment, H-8126, offered by Rep Isenhart of Dubuque adds Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to the list of approved conditions. It should already be approved, but the Board of Medicine denied a petition that MedPharm Iowa worked on earlier this year, so this amendment is now necessary.

The fourth amendment, H-8128, by Rep Klein of Washington, discourages employers from discriminating against medical marijuana patients by making them pay ten times the regular weekly unemployment wages as usual, if I am reading this amendment correctly. I’ll need to confirm with Klein to be certain, or wait until it’s discussed, which seems to be happening today, although the House doesn’t always follow the debate calendar to the letter. PTSD and autism are added in this amendment. Nurses are allowed to recommend patients to the program and certify them, changes the THC limitations, removes the DOT from the card issuance process and makes the department of health issue medical cards instead of the DOT, frees up the advisory board to advise the legislature on relevant issues by having as many meetings as they wish, and really bad language concerning requests for guarantees for daddy federal government to forever provide federal funding in spite of Iowa apparently admitting to violating federal law, a horrible misreading of the case law and grounds for a lawsuit. Hopefully, that language is not in the final bill, or it could be problematic, big time.

The fifth amendment, H-8129, is also by Representative Isenhart. I’m putting the whole language for the amendment here. Remember you can see all original amendments on the left side of this page under “Bill History” at this link. Summary of this amendment: state medical director certification rules are added where the department of public health by January of 2021 must establish a process for a patient who has been denied a written certification by a doctor shall submit the patient paperwork to the state medical director directly to get a medical card. This will solve patient issues with not finding doctors educated on endocannabinoid systems, in a timely manner.

The sixth amendment, H-8130, filed by Rep Forbes of Polk, doesn’t make much sense. It seems to strike a bunch of line items and replace them with nothing. I’ll have to come back to that, if it’s not explained during floor debate. Which reminds me, follow us on Facebook at WeedPress to see video of the floor debate on these amendments later this week.

The above amendments were filed March 9th. Two other amendments were filed March 6th:

H-8101, by Breckenridge, of Jasper, is similar to Klein’s amendment and includes the legally ridiculous language concerning guarantees for an allowance from the daddy federal government, which strikes me as absurd, because such a guarantee is impossible to achieve and is not at all the remedy we are seeking. It’s ridiculous. Like Klein’s amendment, this amendment rewrites the original bill entirely.

The 8th and final amendment is H-8104 by Breckenridge and allows nurses to certify patients, increases THC limits to a world shattering 25 whole grams, allows for the arbitrary THC limits to be lifted with doctor recommendations, and allows for patient data to be collected on demographics, effective treatment options, clinical outcomes, and quality of life outcomes.