State to allow road trips for medical marijuana

By John Finnerty



HARRISBURG — Parents of children eligible for medical marijuana will be legally allowed as early as next month to travel elsewhere to get the drug.

It won’t be a short road trip, however.

Maine is the closest state that welcomes medical marijuana seekers, said Becky Dansky, legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project. The District of Columbia is considering loosening rules to allow visitors with medical marijuana cards to use its dispensaries, too.

Most of the two-dozen states with medical marijuana laws refuse out-of-state buyers. The same will be true in Pennsylvania, too, once the medical marijuana program is up and running here.

Without such a program, state health officials plan a temporary rule allowing Pennsylvanians to bring home medical marijuana, Health Secretary Karen Murphy told reporters Wednesday.

It was welcome news to parents who’ve been waiting, and lobbying, for years to get cannabis-based treatment for their children.

“We’re so excited. Oh, my goodness, what a wonderful thing,” said Maria Belkadi, whose 7-year-year son, Marksen, has severe autism.

Pennsylvania is the only state that includes childhood autism as a qualifying condition for marijuana treatments.

That means the Belkadis will have to travel to Colorado, where marijuana use is generally legal, to get drugs for Marksen’s treatments.

If Pennsylvania didn’t include a short-term waiver to allow parents to travel for the drug, Maria Belkadi said her family would have moved out west.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to wait a year or two,” she said, for the state to establish a medical marijuana program. “Now, we have hope.”

Buying marijuana for medicinal purposes remains illegal under federal law. However, the federal government cannot force states to enforce its law, and “there are no known cases” of the government prosecuting someone for possessing a small amount of marijuana due to medical cannabis laws, according to the state Health Department.

Murphy said health officials do not have estimates of how many people will seek medical marijuana treatment.

Dansky said as many as 250,000 people have the qualifying conditions specified in the state’s medical marijuana law including epilepsy, AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and a dozen other maladies.

Advocates had pressed for immediate legal protection for all patients, adult and children, who can benefit from medical marijuana, Dansky said.

The travel-waiver benefits only a fraction of those who will ultimately benefit from the law.
“Going to another state is not practical,” Dansky said.

But the waiver represents a compromise to assist those whom she called the most “visible advocates” for medical marijuana — parents of children with seizure disorders.

Elsewhere children with seizure disorders represent about 2 percent of those who get medical marijuana treatment.

Murphy stressed the travel protection is based on language in the new law - not a policy established by her department.

While Dansky acknowledged the shortcomings of the waiver, she called it a “good first step.”

A lawmaker who championed the medical marijuana bill also welcomed the Health Department’s announcement.

“Patients across Pennsylvania are one step closer to getting the medicine they need,” said Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Delaware County. “I look forward to continued work with the administration to ensure that our medical marijuana law helps as many people as possible, as soon as possible.”