New York Health Committee Votes 21 to 2 to Allow Medical Marijuana for Menstrual Cramps
New York’s Assembly Health Committee has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would add severe menstrual cramps – know as dysmenorrhea – to the state’s list of qualifying medical marijuana conditions.
The committee gave approval to Assembly Bill 582 with an overwhelming 21 to 2 vote. The measure now moves towards a vote by the full Assembly, where passage would send it to the Senate. If it also passes the Senate, it would be send to Governor Andrew Cuomo for consideration.
“This is a woman’s health issue and for years women have suffered in silence. There’s Midol. You can take Advil, but really nothing more,” Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, the bill’s lead sponsor, told Newsweek. “Men have really been [the ones] who’ve run state houses, governorships, presidencies, and some issues that are just about women have gotten shortchanged and that’s because it’s not in men’s everyday consciousness.”
If passed into law, dysmenorrhea would join HIV/AIDS, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, “damage to the nervous tissue of the spinal cord with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity”, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies and Huntington’s disease as qualifying medical marijuana conditions.