Issue Position: Medical Marijuana

Issue Position

I authored and sponsored South Carolina's first medical-marijuana legislation, a 2014 law that allows doctors to legally authorize their epileptic patients to take cannabis oil to alleviate their seizures. I am also the author and sponsored the pending bill to expand the medical conditions for which cannabis medicines can be authorized by doctors and used by their patients.

The U.S. Surgeon General has stated publicly that "medical marijuana can be helpful" when it comes to treating a wide range of illnesses, diseases and disorders; the United States Congress has for the past two years forbade the DOJ from enforcing federal drug laws against states that have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes; and an overwhelming majority of South Carolinians (70% of GOP primary voters!) support empowering doctors to prescribe cannabis-related medicine to their patients.

There has been pushback from socially conservative politicians and they've won some battles, but those of us pushing for doctors -- not politicians -- to be the ones who decide what medicines their patients are able take will eventually win the war.

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