A bi-partisan coalition of 20 Alabama House lawmakers, including Republican House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, have co-sponsored a bill to legalize and regulate medical cannabis. Republican State Rep. Mike Ball introduced the bill, HB 243, on Wednesday. But Ball, who is a former agent with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, also wants lawmakers to re-up a pair of laws authorizing cannabidiol research and permitting patients with severe seizure disorders to access certain medical cannabis products.
Politician Behind CBD Laws Proposes Bill to Legalize, Regulate Medical Cannabis Industry
In 2014, Alabama took its first steps toward the broader legalization of medical cannabis by passing Carly’s Law. Carly’s Law, which Rep. Ball sponsored, authorized a University of Alabama, Birmingham study on the use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil as a treatment for seizures. “The research is paying off,” Ball said. The UAB study focused exclusively on conducting clinical trials on children suffering from debilitating seizures. So while Carly’s Law did not include any wider legalization of CBD oil or cannabis, it did provide children participating in the study with access to non-psychoactive CBD oil.
In 2016, after some failed attempts to legalize medical cannabis the previous year, Alabama passed Leni’s Law. Leni’s Law decriminalized cannabis-derived CBD (as opposed to hemp-derived) for patients with a limited set of medical conditions. The bill, named after an Alabama child whose family moved to Oregon to access legal CBD oil, came on the heels of data UAB reported in March 2016 showing 50 percent of the Carly’s Law study participants saw improvement in seizure control.
House Bill 243, introduced Wednesday, would extend Carly’s Law, which expires in July, to Jan. 1, 2021. It would also revise Leni’s Law to include