Pennsylvania Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Pennsylvania legalizes medical marijuana and goes down in the history books as the 24th state in the U.S. to do so.

Surrounded by a jubilant crowd of supporters in the rotunda at the Capitol building in Harrisburg, Gov. Tom Wolf, signed the bill into law.

Signing the bill into law in the Commonwealth caps an arduous road that, in end, gained bipartisan support from the state’s Senate and House of Representatives.

In a statement captured by WPVI-TV of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sen. Daylin Leach said: “We stopped being liberals and started being problem solvers, and we stopped being conservatives and started being compromisers, and we stopped being politicians and started being human beings.”

Pennsylvania Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Wolf also took to Twitter saying:

We did it! Medical marijuana is now legal in Pennsylvania. #MMJ pic.twitter.com/NgLf0DQRMU

— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) April 17, 2016

Once it is fully adopted — a process that might take 18-24 months — the bill will allow doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients with qualifying conditions in liquid, oil, ointment, pill or liquid form that can be vaporized and inhaled. Smoking will not be allowed.

There are 17 qualifying medical conditions covered by the bill and they include:

• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
• Epilepsy
• HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) / AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
• Huntington’s disease
• Glaucoma
• Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
• Autism
• Cancer
• Crohn’s disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Sickle Cell Anemia
• Severe chronic or intractable pain of neuropathic origin
• Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Damage to the nervous tissue of the spinal cord with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity
• Intractable Seizures
• Neuropathies

Per the new law in Pennsylvania, the state will allow up to 50 medical marijuana dispensaries.

Harrisburg Photo via Shutterstock

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