Is 2023 the year Kentucky lawmakers finally legalize medical marijuana? Senate holds the key

Kentucky remains in the minority of states that do not allow for the use of medical marijuana — but some advocates and lawmakers are hopeful the 2023 General Assembly could finally change that.

In two of the past three legislative sessions, a bill legalizing medical marijuana has easily passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support only for the measure to die in the Senate without so much as a vote.

This upcoming session, the ball is in the Senate’s court. Of the Senate’s six new Republican lawmakers, at least half are on the record in support of medical cannabis in the right circumstances.

But 2023 is also an election year in Kentucky, with incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear seeking a second term against a to-be-determined Republican challenger. Beshear has criticized the legislature’s “failure to act” on the issue, and in November, issued an executive order effective Jan. 1, 2023, allowing qualifying Kentuckians to possess medical marijuana if it’s purchased legally elsewhere.

Republicans have called Beshear’s move political posturing done with the election in mind; Beshear, in turn, has called on the legislature to pass medical marijuana so his order can be rescinded.

Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, who sponsored the bill that passed in 2020 and 2022, said he’s not sponsoring legislation in 2023 because the House has shown it can pass the measure with ease.

“That doesn’t move the ball forward,” Nemes said. “We’re going to focus on Day 1 in the Senate.”

Sen. Steve West, R-Paris, told The Herald-Leader he intends to file legislation legalizing medical marijuana — which he also did in 2021 — when the General Assembly resumes for the second part of its session in February.

So, is this the year it passes?

“I think it’s wide open,” West said. “I do know that it polls really well. I do know that there is a lot of support in the Senate. Obviously it passed out of the House, so we know where they stand on the topic.”

Speaking on a recent episode of Kentucky Tonight on KET, Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said he “won’t stand in the way” of or “make an overt attempt to kill the bill” for medical marijuana if the caucus has the votes despite his personal opposition. Caucus members’ opinions on medical marijuana are “all over the place,” he said.

“I don’t know that saying the Senate needs to start the bill is the best strategy,” Thayer said. “Frankly, I don’t think anybody in our caucus feels strongly enough about it to muscle it through, so I still think that Rep. Nemes ought to run his bill and try to pass it and put the pressure on us and see what happens.”

Advocates find power in their stories

Kristin Wilcox and Julie Cantwell, co-founders of Kentucky Moms for Medical Cannabis, say they’ll push for legalization of medical marijuana for as long as it takes — but they hope it’s sooner rather than later.

“We still have our children to protect, but this is bigger than we are at this point,” Wilcox said. “There are thousands like us and we have vowed to ensure that we get this done.”

Wilcox, of Beaver Dam, and Cantwell, of Rineyville, each have a child with medication-resistant seizures. Both say access to medical marijuana has been life-changing for their children, and have shared their stories with lawmakers and urged others to do the same.

“We need the Senate to pass this,” Cantwell said. “People are sick, and they’re suffering, and they’re fed up. ... I feel very, very hopeful it’s going to happen this year. I really do.”

Lawmakers like Nemes, West and Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Crofton, said the stories of real Kentuckians have been instrumental in opening their minds on the issue. Westerfield, the Senate Judiciary chair, surprised many observers when he announced his support for Nemes’ bill in the 2022 session after having been a staunch opponent.

Westerfield said he and Nemes, along with a Legislative Research Commission staffer, had many a Zoom call going over every question and concern Westerfield had about the bill until they were all addressed.

“I was willing to support it,” Westerfield said. “It’s still not without reservations, and I continue to have those reservations. ... But I’m willing to give it support for constituents like the one that reached out to me and the thousand others that I couldn’t remember now.”

Nemes called Westerfield’s support “a massive pickup for the bill.”

“He’s helping talk with senators and letting them know this is a bill they can support with comfort,” Nemes said. “That it’s as tight as they want it to be. ... I think he has influenced a lot of support in the Senate caucus.”

Nemes, Westerfield and West were all clear: legalization of medical marijuana is their end goal; it’s not meant to be a stepping-stone to recreational weed.

“This is not a wink wink, nod nod medical marijuana program,” Nemes said. “We do not, in Kentucky, want to go to recreational.”

Could politics delay passage another year?

Republican supporters of medical marijuana say Beshear’s executive order could actually be a setback to medical marijuana in the commonwealth, as some GOP lawmakers may be reluctant to give the Democratic governor a perceived win in an election year.

“The governor didn’t do us any favors, in my opinion,” West said. “All he did was muddy the waters, and constitutionally, he does not have the right to put in place medical marijuana for citizenry without going through the legislative process. ... He knows it polls well, and he set himself up for the campaign season as we go into the 2023 year.

“Total distraction from the process and may have actually set the bill back a year.”

Nemes said if this wasn’t an election issue, Beshear wouldn’t have waited until the third year of his term. Or better yet, he would have worked with the legislature to get it done.

“I wish the governor’s administration would actually go to the Senate with me and others and make the case,” he said. “The governor hasn’t lifted a finger in three years in the legislature and I wish he’d do that.”

Nemes said Beshear did a good thing with the creation of the Team Kentucky Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee — of which Wilcox and Cantwell are members — and that it has been helpful in collecting evidence and stories that could help the bill in the Senate.

“Let’s bring it to the General Assembly and let’s get it done,” Nemes said.

Beshear, at a recent press conference, said “nothing would make me happier” than the legislature passing medical cannabis.

“So to the General Assembly, please, pass it,” Beshear said. “Pass it this session. Pass it in a way that we can pull back that executive order and where people don’t feel like a criminal just trying to live their life, especially at a time where they don’t know how much time they have left.”

Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is also running for governor in 2023, has said Beshear “seems to relish ruling by decree instead of by the law.”

But, in the month since Beshear’s announcement, Cameron’s office has not yet challenged the executive order, saying only the office is “reviewing these executive orders to determine next steps.”

To the lawmakers who still oppose medical marijuana, Wilcox has a message: “I genuinely hope that you never have a reason to understand this the way that we and our families have had to do. That’s something to be grateful for.”