Cameron legislator proposes marijuana bill

 
“Missourians fighting for their lives don’t have time to wait for the FDA to approve investigational treatments that contain cannabis,” said Rep. Neely, a local physician. “We need to do everything we can as a state to give more choices to people struggling with terminal-illnesses.”

 
Rep. Neely’s bill expands a 2014 law he sponsored, known as the “Right to Try Act”, to include medical marijuana. Missouri’s Right to Try law currently excludes medical marijuana, but otherwise allows terminally ill patients to access experimental drugs outside clinical trials before they are approved for general use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

 
“If a doctor thinks a certain medication could help me in some way, then that’s up to us,” said Neely’s daughter, Kirstina Brogan in a 2014 interview; she succumbed to stage four collorectal cancer in 2015. “That shouldn’t be up to somebody that has no involvement in my care.”

 
Though many clinical trials are underway to study medical marijuana, less than 10% of terminally-ill patients are even eligible to participate.

 
Missouri has already granted licenses to two cannabis growers, but they are restricted to low-THC plants and can only produce one type of anticonvulsant cannabis oil for people with intractable epilepsy.

 
HB 437 removes those restrictions and expands access to patients with terminal-illnesses and other seriously debilitating conditions. The proposal would also allow for more research to be conducted on medical marijuana.

 
Some activists are already seeking to get medical cannabis on the 2018 ballot in Missouri; an initiative petition already is filed with the Secretary of State. Others believe the legislature should take a serious stab at the issue now that the drug is legal in most states, including neighboring Arkansas.