Support is growing in South Carolina for medical cannabis reform. The Compassionate Care Act has been consistently passed by the state Senate in recent years, but has failed to reach the governor’s table. This year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing opioid crisis, some powerful state senators are putting their names on the bill, reports the WPDE.
“Ten years ago I would have said never, five years ago I would have said ‘yes, maybe ten years from now’, and last year I would have said, ‘Yes, I think we can do it next year.’ The opioid crisis really brought up the idea of bringing an alternative to opioids and legal heroin, as I call it. ”- Sen. Goldfinch Jr., in a statement to the WPDE
Joining previous sponsors, Sens. Tom Davis and Brad Hutto, chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Hugh Leatherman and Sens. Luke Rankin, Dick Harpootlian, Gerald Malloy and Katrina Shealy added their names to the project this year.
Senator Davis introduced the Compassionate Care Act in late 2020. Although the bill does not allow smoking of medical cannabis, it does mention ten qualifying conditions and opens the door for terminally ill patients less than a year old to use medical cannabis . Addressing the opioid crisis directly, the bill says doctors can recommend medical cannabis for diseases that opioids can be used to treat.
According to the CDC, 8,835 South Carolinians died of an opioid-related overdose in 2018 – a rate of 17.1 – which was a significant increase from the 628 opioid-related deaths in 2016. Synthetic opioid overdose with fentanyl or fentanyl analogues had the biggest increase.