Medical marijuana bill clears first vote in N.C. Senate

An amendment was attached to House Bill 563 on Wednesday that inserted most of the language from Senate Bill 3, titled “NC Compassionate Care Act.”

The vote passed on Thursday by a vote of 33-9. A final vote is likely to be held Monday night. 

Upon approval of the final vote, the bill goes back to the House, which can accept or reject the changes. If the House rejects the changes the bill could go to a concurrence committee. 

The amendment comes as House and Senate Republican leadership are in negotiations over the state 2024-25 budget.

Because the 2024 session is expected to end shortly after the state budget becomes law, legislators have started their annual 11th-hour scrambling to get hot-button bills through both chambers.

The amendment filer to HB563 was Sen. Bill Rabon, R-New Hanover, chairman of the Senate Rules and Operations committee, primary sponsor of SB3 and a cancer survivor. SB3 cleared the Senate by a 36-10 vote in March 2023, but has not received a vote in a House committee.

HB563’s initial focus was tightening sale and distribution regulations on hemp-derived consumable products, such as vaping devices, as well as banning those devices from school grounds.

The bill also contains language that would: place Tianeptine, Xylazine and Kratom on the state’s controlled substance schedules; create criminal penalties for criminal possession and unlawful sale of embalming fluid; and create penalties for exposing a minor to a controlled substance.

Opponents have expressed concerns about the medical marijuana legislation, including that it would serve as a gateway to legalizing marijuana in North Carolina, and that medical research isn’t definitive on benefiting users.

House Speaker Tim Moore has told legislative media outlets that for a medical marijuana bill to clear the House, there would need to be “reasonable controls,” and a balance to have enough distributors to prescribe and avoid a monopoly.

Rabon plea

Rabon was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2000 at age 48. Rabon has said his oncologist initially told him he had as much as 18 months to live.

Rabon has acknowledged limited use of marijuana — “a few puffs” — enabled him to withstand the worst of his chemotherapy treatments as he continued to work at his veterinarian practice. 

On Thursday, Rabon made another impassioned plea for recommendation of the medical marijuana language, particularly addressing its provision requiring the necessity of a doctor experienced in cannabis involved in treatment.

“The people who need — and can benefit from — medical-grade cannabis are dying every day,” Rabon said. “They are at their wit’s end. People are buying marijuana on the street and they don’t know what they’re getting and no idea the interaction with the drugs they are taking.

“We have a right to try bill that has passed the House unanimously and is going to be added on the (Senate) floor to the bill because people are dying. They need help to stay alive, to stay with their loved ones another day, to feel good about life, to have a meal, not be put on morphine so they don’t know what world they’re in.”

Addressing opponents of medical marijuana language, Rabon said that “if you are scared of the boogeyman, sleep with the lights on.”

“This is something we should do. I have lived it. Those who are dead set against it should walk in my shoes, know what I’ve done.

“You can preach to me folks all you want about loving your fellow man,” Rabon said. “If you love your fellow man, you will try every day to make their life better.”

Hemp language

Rep. Jeffrey McNeely, R-Iredell, and primary sponsor of HB563, asked Senate Rules members to back out of the medical marijuana language, saying the proposed language in the previous version of the House bill should not be tied to language unlikely to pass the House.

“Don’t take your eye off the ball,” McNeely said. “We’re trying to regulate a completely unregulated industry that is hooking our children on marijuana at a very early age.

“It’s a pathway, and we need to be very mindful of that. So, don’t forget that part of this when some shining new object is added. We’re trying to save our children from a path of destruction.”

Rabon said the tightening of the hemp vaping regulation is important, saying “we’re in the ninth inning on that one.”

That language, according to Rabon, attempts to fix “our dropping of the ball and letting something that should have been tightly regulated make it to our (retail) shelves, into our homes and into our children’s lives with absolutely no control.”

SB3 background

SB3 would permit the use of medical marijuana for individuals with ALS, cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments, but not for those experiencing chronic pain.

The bill does not allow recreational marijuana usage.

Legislative analysts have said House members were likely to amend SB3 to add language that reflects a more conservative approach.

Although Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, has championed many health-care bills, foremost the historic Medicaid expansion bill pending funding in the 2023-24 state budget, he had not expressed an opinion on medical marijuana until May 31, 2023, during a non-voting committee meeting.

Lambeth said what changed his mind was a fact-finding visit with 15 other legislators to a marijuana operational center in Mississippi. That state has similar restrictions to the ones SB3 proposes for North Carolina.

Lambeth said he was reassured by how Mississippi handled the growing of the marijuana used for medical purposes.

Lambeth also cited recent conversations “with ministers, family people, friends, saying ‘please help us because we’ve been in such pain and we think this will actually relieve us’” of that pain.