West Virginia’s House of Delegates has passed a measure that would increase the number of cultivators, processors, and dispensaries allowed to operate under the state’s medical cannabis program, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. The bill does not include allowing patients to access raw flower products.
The measure would allow businesses to vertically integrate – allowing them to act as grower, processor, and dispensary – and allow patients to pre-register for the program before it comes online July 2019.
What does the bill do, specifically?
- Increases the number of permits the Bureau of Public Health can issue from 10 each for growers and processors to 50, and the number of dispensary permits from 30 to 165.
- Changes patient certification provisions to allow medical professionals to determine whether a past or current medical condition could be a contradiction from medical cannabis use and includes language to determine if a patient is experiencing “serious pathophysiological discomfort, disability or dysfunction that may be attributable to a serious medical condition and may possibly benefit from cannabis treatment.”
West Virginia‘s Medical Cannabis Advisory Board has requested that the bill be amended to include flower access and Republican Delegate Riley Moore indicated the Senate could add that amendment, but it could make for a tighter vote once returned in the House.