P-o-l-i-t-i-c-s does not spell relief: Legislature works in bipartisan fashion to ensure medical cannabis available July 1

Most Americans today live in states where marijuana is actually legal.
That is, either for recreational use (10 states) or only for medical purposes.
Come July 1, West Virginia will be among the latter category, along with 32 other states that have approved comprehensive public medical cannabis programs.
Last week, HB 2538 breezed through the Senate Judiciary Committee with only one No on a voice vote of its 17-member panel.
It advanced from the 100-member House in mid-February with only a handful of no votes (89-7).
It is scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor this week where it is expected to pass unamended and then go to the governor for his signature.
Passage of the state’s medical cannabis initiative actually happened in the 2017 regular session. Since then state officials, the medical community and others have been laying the groundwork to facilitate this initiative.
HB 2538 appears to be the final leg of that required infrastructure — handling the money associated with medical cannabis.
The bill provides for two state funds as a result of no bank willing to step up and handle cannabis money.
One fund will tend to the licensing fees, penalties and taxes tied to the program, while the other receives all oversight and compliance fees to be spent on such tasks.
One financial institution or more will be chosen by competitive bid to handle banking services, but not the program’s money.
Still not so much “if,” but “when” federal law changes and banks can legally handle such program’s money, these state funds will be dissolved and the money transferred to them.
Meanwhile, Congress and the federal government still officially consider marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin, a notion that has been disproved for decades.
Though some will always maintain this program will open the door to recreational marijuana or drug abuse, we don’t believe that.
This bill is not a gateway to legalizing marijuana or drug abuse. It’s a gateway to relieving the chronic pain that thousands of West Virginians — most seriously or terminally ill — live with every day.
We applaud the Legislature for working together to successfully overcome the difficulty of not being able to obtain regular banking and other financial services.
This was no small feat and to unite the overwhelming majority of lawmakers in support of this legislation proves the Legislature can govern when it wants.
Whatever our politics, they should never prevent access to an inexpensive, commonplace drug that can relieve unthinkable pain.
Most of us don’t need to suffer that to understand this.