An effort by a South Carolina senator to resurrect legislation to legalize medical marijuana was unsuccessful on Wednesday. Sen. Tom Davis’s (R) move to add the main provisions of his bill to legalize medical marijuana to largely unrelated legislation was ruled not germane by Senate leadership, a move that comes one week after the House killed Senate-passed legislation to allow patients to legally access cannabis. The latest development marks another procedural defect that’s unrelated to the policy merits of the reform proposal. The reason that the earlier bill was rejected is that it contained revenue-raising provisions, and so legislative leaders deemed that it needed to originate in the House, rather than the Senate, under the state constitution. There were expectations that the sponsor would attempt to keep the issue alive by putting the full language of his medical cannabis measure into an unrelated House bill to resolve the issue. But instead, he proposed it as an amendment to a Senate bill on contraceptives on Wednesday, without the tax provisions. Davis’s original legislation cleared his chamber along largely bipartisan lines in February.
Tom Angell, Marijuana Moment, 05/12/2022 11:08:00