Lawmakers in Iowa are considering legislation that would expand the qualifying conditions under the program, prevent it from expiring in July, and permit medical cannabis to be grown and sold in the state, the Globe Gazette reports. Currently, only patients with intractable epilepsy are able to access the program, and they must obtain their medicine elsewhere – in violation of state and federal laws.
The additional medical conditions covered by the program would need to be recommended by the University of Iowa’s medical college and approved by state lawmakers, and the products grown in the state would be low-THC and high-CBD, according to the bill text. The measure would also allow medical cannabis card holders from other states to make purchases in Iowa.
Although all three members of the panel approved the measure, Chairman Rep. Jared Klein indicated changes would be possible.
“This is a working vehicle,” Klein, a Republican, said in an Iowa Public Radio report. “This is not a set in stone thing.”
The measure is set now to be introduced in the GOP-controlled Iowa House, which rejected a similar proposal last April, according to the IPR report. That bill had narrowly passed the Democrat-led Senate.