“There are lots of people who don’t need to take opioids for his or her long-term PTSD and ache administration due to the excessive risk of habit to opioids.”
By Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator
The Louisiana Home Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations unanimously superior a invoice Thursday that may shield state staff who’re legally handled with medical marijuana.
House Bill 988, sponsored by Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, protects state staff from unfavourable penalties if they’re identified with a situation for which their physician recommends medical marijuana that’s utilized in accordance with state regulation.
The regulation would shield staff from being fired and would shield potential staff from being discriminated in opposition to for his or her use of medical marijuana.
The invoice wouldn’t apply to regulation enforcement, firefighters or different public security officers.
The Louisiana Board of Pharmacy reported that there are over 43,000 medical marijuana customers within the state. The primary medical marijuana dispensaries within the state started working in 2019.
“There are lots of people who don’t need to take opioids for his or her long-term PTSD and ache administration due to the excessive risk of habit to opioids,” Landry mentioned. “This has proved to be a greater possibility than them.”
Rep. Larry Frieman, R-Abita Springs, raised considerations that the problem must be addressed by state businesses, not by the Legislature.
Jacques Berry, communications director for the Louisiana Division of Administration, clarified that his division has insurance policies defending its employees from discrimination based mostly on medical marijuana use and that the invoice would create uniform insurance policies throughout all state businesses.
Berry referred to the influence of a sexual-harassment regulation sponsored two years by the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge.
“Each company had a sexual harassment coverage, however they have been far and wide, and Dr. Carpenter needed stricter, extra constant requirements,” Berry mentioned. “She wrote an excellent regulation, and it’s working very nicely.”
Frieman pushed again, arguing that the invoice amounted to the Legislature doing the Division of Administration’s job.
Berry identified that the following governor might change the coverage.
Rep. Ed Larvadain, D-Alexandria, praised the invoice.
“We’re going to have to alter how we take care of medical marijuana,” Larvadain mentioned. “However it is a first step.”
Larvadain requested that Landry work with him sooner or later to discover a technique to shield police and firefighters as nicely.
“Loads of these women and men have power pains as a result of over time they’ve needed to climb via home windows and cops have been abused,” Larvadain mentioned.
A number of medical marijuana advocates testified in assist of the invoice.
Tony Landry, an advocate with Veterans Motion Council, mentioned regulation enforcement officers and firemen can’t take CBD, a chemical present in marijuana, as a result of “it could accumulate in your physique over time and trigger a constructive check. I’m in favor of this invoice, and I simply assume we have to go away no worker behind.”
“The very fact is we have now an opioid downside that will get mentioned on this constructing on a regular basis,” Kevin Caldwell, an advocate with the Marijuana Coverage Challenge, mentioned. “We’re seeing that for lots of sufferers, medical hashish is an exit technique.”
No members of the general public got here to talk in opposition of the invoice.