What a shame!
Hopes were high, pardon the pun, that medial marijuana would become legal in Pennsylvania when the state Senate passed such a bill last month by a 43-7 margin.
However, the bill was moved on to the state House of Representatives, and that’s where things have bogged down, like so many other bills in previous years.
Despite claims by the supporters of the bill that they have the backing of 160 members of the state House of Representatives, leaders of the Republican Party, which controls the chamber, have always been lukewarm about the measure.
Those doubts were confirmed Monday when staffers for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, told reporter Charles Thompson of the Pennlive.com website, that the Republican caucus wants to hold at least two hearings before voting on the bill.
With the House scheduled to be in session for only two days next week before shutting down for the rest of the year, that means a vote on medical marijuana won’t take place in 2014. And worse than that, the entire process will have to start over when the legislature reconvenes in January of 2015.
It could be at least six months, or maybe even a year, before the bill is passed by both the Senate and House, and that’s assuming the backers of medical marijuana win their legislative elections next month.
While it’s understandable that the House wants to conduct hearings, concerning the measure, you have to wonder why this entire process wasn’t already underway. After all, the Senate passed the bill on Sept. 24, giving the House over three weeks to consider the measure before the legislative session ends for the year on Oct. 15.
The problem was the House was only in session for five days over that period, making it almost impossible to do anything of major significance.
Adding to the mix was the fact that legislators didn’t want to be voting on anything as controversial as medical marijuana just days before the Nov. 5 general election.
It all has to be depressing for people like Julie Michaels of Connellsville, whose 4-year-old daughter, Sydney, suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of intractable epilepsy. According to Michaels, her daughter suffers about 3,000 seizures a week and has been flown by emergency helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital six times in the last three years.
Michaels and other mothers with children facing similar problems are fighting for access to cannabidiol, an oil derative of cannibus that is taken orally. The drug has been known to reduce the seizures, allowing children like Sydney to lead more normal lives.
Michaels and other moms like her launched a prolonged and determined battle to win approval of the bill in the Senate, and their campaign was touted as the main reason why the measure was passed.
Undoubtedly Michaels and the other moms will be back in Harrisburg next year doing whatever it takes to convince state legislators of the merits of medical marijuana. And chances are good that eventually the measure will be passed, as polls in Pennsylvania show an overwhelming majority of commonwealth residents are in favor of legalizing medical marijuana.
But in the meantime, Sydney Michaels and other children like her will continue to suffer from countless seizures everyday.
Too bad for their sake that the state House didn’t do its job and pass legislation allowing medical marijuana now rather than later.
Time may mean nothing to members of the state Legislature, but it means everything to children like Sydney Michaels and her family and to countless other children, with diseases like Sydney’s, and their families.