Editorial Roundup: Nebraska

Lincoln Journal-Star. August 31, 2022.

Editorial: After failed petition drives, Nebraska Legislature needs to address medical cannabis issue

Crista Eggers, the statewide campaign coordinator of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, is the mother of a 7-year-old who lives with uncontrollable seizures caused by drug-resistant epilepsy.

Doctors have been unable to prescribe anything that gives him relief, and that remains the “heart and drive” of her work to legalize medical marijuana.

“While these conversations we’re having right now are incredibly difficult, they pale in comparison to the conversation I have to have with my little boy later tonight when he asks ‘Mommy, did we get the medicine?’” Eggers told Journal Star reporter Chris Dunker.

“I don’t know what to say to him, because once again, the patients in our state are left to suffer.”

Eggers isn’t alone. Hundreds of Nebraska families have loved ones battling stage 4 cancer, uncontrollable seizures, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. Medical cannabis helps them deal with the pain.

That Nebraskans support medical cannabis can’t be disputed. Polling has shown strong support, and a 2020 petition drive to put the issue on the ballot gathered sufficient signatures but was disallowed because the petition language was deemed in violation of state law.

This year, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana lost much of its funding and, despite a late flurry of signatures gathered, likely fell short of qualifying for the ballot.

Both petitions seeking to legalize cannabis use for medical purposes — one which protected doctors who recommend and patients who use cannabis for medical reasons and one which would have legalized the production, supply and distribution of cannabis for medical use — needed 86,766 valid signatures to qualify for the general election ballot.

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has signaled its intent to mount another drive in 2024. But it is time for the Nebraska Legislature, after years of consideration, to take action on medical marijuana.

Put simply, it’s time for the Legislature to put together sensible legislation that solves the issue, without symbolic grandstanding or de facto legalization.

The former was found in LB1275, a bill introduced by former Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, which would have legalized medical marijuana but expressly barred “the cultivation of cannabis.”

Federal law bans the transport of the plant across state lines, making that bill functionally useless.

Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt has said she will introduce a medical marijuana bill in the upcoming legislative session, hopefully one that follows the restrictive, compromise model drawn up in the past by Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart.

Let’s hope this is a priority issue when the session begins, as doing nothing is no longer an option.

We send legislators to the Capitol to solve tough issues. Finding a way to pass medical cannabis legislation should be at the top of January’s to-do list.

END

The Associated Press