South Carolina Bills Filed to Legalize Medical Marijuana
Two South Carolina House bills slated for introduction in 2017 would legalize medical marijuana for qualifying patients in the state.
Pre-filed by Rep. Todd Rutherford (D-Columbia), House Bill 3128 (H.3128) would allow qualifying medical patients the ability to possess “up to two ounces of a usable form of marijuana” as well as grow “up to six marijuana plants, with three or fewer being mature, flowering plants that are producing a usable form of marijuana” without being persecuted by state-level officials.
Patients would be eligible to qualify for medical marijuana if they suffer from one of the following ailments listed in H.3128:
(a) cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or treatment for these conditions;
(b) a chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition; or treatment of that disease or medical condition, that results in one or more of the following symptoms, and for which, in the professional opinion of that patient’s physician, the use of medical marijuana would alleviate one or more of the symptoms:
(i) cachexia;
(ii) severe pain;
(iii) severe nausea;
(iv) seizures, including those that are characteristic of epilepsy; or
(v) persistent muscle spasms, including those characteristic of multiple sclerosis; and
(c) another disease or medical condition, or treatment of that disease or medical condition, determined by the department to be a debilitating medical condition pursuant to department regulation or department approval of a petition submitted by a patient or a patient’s physician.
Rep. Rutherford also pre-filed a second bill – House Bill 3162 (H.3162) – to provide medical marijuana for certain military veterans.
The bill would allow military veterans who were discharged in honorable fashion and later diagnosed with PTSD to; “possess twenty-eight grams or one ounce or less of marijuana or ten grams or less of hashish.”
“The time has come to put aside archaic misconceptions of medical marijuana and put patients first,” said Rep. Rutherford said in a WLTX report. “I hear devastating stories every single day from people who are battling epilepsy or suffering from a brain tumor who desperately need medical marijuana to treat the debilitating symptoms.”
Despite the federal prohibition on marijuana, measures such as H.3128 and H.3162 remain perfectly constitutional, and the feds can do little if anything to stop them in practice.
LEGALITY
The federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) passed in 1970 prohibits all of this behavior. Of course, the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to ban or regulate marijuana within the borders of a state, despite the opinion of the politically connected lawyers on the Supreme Court. If you doubt this, ask yourself why it took a constitutional amendment to institute federal alcohol prohibition.
Legalization of medical marijuana in South Carolina would remove a layer of laws prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana, but federal prohibition will remain on the books.
FBI statistics show that law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state, not federal law. By curtailing state prohibition, South Carolina sweeps away much of the basis for 99 percent of marijuana arrests.
Furthermore, figures indicate it would take 40% of the DEA’s budget to investigate and raid the dispensaries in Los Angeles; a single city in a single state. That doesn’t include the cost of prosecution either. The lesson? The feds lack the resources to enforce marijuana prohibition without state assistance.