BY: ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A Senate Democrat unsuccessfully attempted to insert “medicinal cannabis” among treatments allowed under a bill meant to broaden Kansans’ access to experimental drugs.
Democratic Sen. Cindy Holscher, who introduced Wednesday the amendment that would have legalized medicinal cannabis for terminally ill patients, later emphasized her intention was not to create a public medical marijuana program.
“I think most of you realize I would not bring something of that magnitude to an important bill like SB 250,” said Holscher, of Overland Park, Wednesday evening. “That amendment, rather, was to mirror what was approved by President Trump in the Right to Try Act, which is a very defined, narrow scope only for terminally ill patients.”
Senate Bill 250, introduced and carried on the Senate floor by Eudora Republican Sen. Beverly Gossage, would create the Right to Try for Individualized Investigative Treatments Act. Investigational treatments can also be referred to as experimental drugs, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The bill would permit people who are unable to find relief from rare, life-threatening or debilitating conditions to access individualized, genetics-based medical treatment. The drug trial evaluation system in the U.S. is designed to evaluate medications meant to help larger populations leaving behind drugs that can be individually tailored to a patient’s unique genetic makeup, Gossage said.
“Individualized treatments are being pioneered in the U.S. and abroad, but often patients in the U.S. travel thousands of miles,” she said.
The bill passed the Senate and is awaiting approval in the House.
Holscher supported the bill as a whole but voiced concerns.
“I don’t want to give people false hope,” she said, “yet I certainly would not stand in the way of a parent or individual trying to get medical help for a family member.”
Her amendment added medicinal cannabis to the list of treatments allowed under the definition of individualized investigative treatment.
Cannabis “has been found to have proven benefits for those with life-threatening or debilitating diseases,” Holscher said.
During floor debate on the amendment, Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican who sat on the two-day 2024 interim committee that evaluated the possibility of medical marijuana in Kansas, said adding legislation opens a door to unintended consequences.
“We’ve examined medical cannabis for quite some time,” Thompson said, “and the term medical cannabis is nothing but a marketing ploy.”
Medical marijuana is legal in 39 states and Washington, D.C., and recreational use is legal in 24 states and Washington, D.C. Recreational use of marijuana is legal in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Kansas and Idaho are the only states without any form of marijuana legalization. In 2023, of the four proposed bills in Kansas related to medical marijuana, one received a hearing and died in committee. In 2024, two were introduced and both died in committee.
Gossage admonished Holscher’s amendment after nine Democrats voted in favor and all 31 Republicans voted against it.
“I just think it’s tragic that we would turn a discussion on a right to try for individualized treatment for patients with ultra-rare, life-threatening, debilitating diseases that could be life-saving to a debate on so-called medical marijuana,” she said. “That should be a completely separate bill.”