• Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bevy of legislation on July 6, including one bill prohibiting hospitals from denying organ transplants to medical marijuana users based solely on their use of the drug, according to the governor’s website. The Sacramento Bee reported bill proponents argued that some patients were denied life-saving organ transplants because medical professionals classified them as drug abusers. The legislation authored by Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) cleared the Legislature with little opposition. “The Medical Cannabis Organ Transplant Act (AB 258) will save lives by ensuring medical cannabis patients are not discriminated against in the organ transplant process,” Levine said in a press release on his website. Marijuana is sometimes prescribed to cancer patients to ease pain and the effects of chemotherapy. “By ending discrimination against patients, the bill reduces unnecessary suffering and avoidable deaths,” said Don Duncan, the California director of Americans for Safe Access, in the release. The organization, which sponsored the legislation, estimated 1,150 Californians who use medical marijuana were on a transplant waiting list and at risk of being denied, according to a legislative analysis cited by The Bee. Six other states provide medical protections similar to what’s in the bill, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2016.
This article appears in Jul 9-16, 2015.
