The Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means Committee approved a House-passed bill last week that would expand military veterans’ access to medical marijuana. The measure is set up for expected floor consideration on Thursday. The bill is a large-scale supplemental budget that touches on a number of issues, including veterans’ medical cannabis access.
The initial version of the legislation was filed by Gov. Maura Healey (D). Some provisions of her initial proposal were amended or removed by the House of Representatives last month.
If the measure passes the Senate this week and the House signs off on recent changes, it would then go to the governor to be signed into law.
The bill would also add new qualifying conditions to the state’s medical cannabis program. It adds post-traumatic stress disorder, opioid use disorder and “a medical condition that produces chronic pain” to the definition of a “debilitating medical condition.” The version filed by the governor did not include opioid use disorder.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs continues to prohibit its providers from filling out medical marijuana recommendation forms. Many veteran patients are forced to either seek outside, often expensive physician consultations or go without legal access to medical cannabis.
Under the legislation now advancing, veterans in Massachusetts could become registered medical marijuana patients by providing state officials with “official documentation” from the federal Veterans Administration “indicating a diagnosis of a debilitating medical condition; provided, that the [Cannabis Control Commission (CCC)] shall not require a written or electronic certification from a healthcare professional.”
In other words, VA doctors would not have to specifically recommend medical cannabis in order to help their patients get legal access. They could instead just diagnose them with a qualifying condition under state law.
That latter clause is a change from Healey’s initial proposal, which had more simply read that veterans could use VA diagnosis documentation to get medical marijuana “without the need for a written or electronic certification from a healthcare professional” without any reference to the CCC.
Veterans and other adults over 21 can already buy recreational marijuana in Massachusetts. But medical cannabis purchases are exempt from the sales, excise and municipal taxes that apply in the adult-use market.
Medical patients also have higher purchase limits than adult-use consumers. They also have access to higher potency products than are allowed in the recreational market.
Recent polls show that a majority of Massachusetts voters oppose that measure, known as Question 8.
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