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The ongoing medical cannabis debate resumed on Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.
Mick Mulvaney, former President Trump’s White House chief of staff, is criticizing his own party for opposing a bill to legalize medical marijuana. He called local legislation “something that merits discussion and reasoned analysis,” even if it’s not a proposal that is conventionally considered a conservative priority, reported Marijuana Moment.
The South Carolina GOP (SCGOP) apparatus has also vocally opposed a congressional bill to end federal prohibition that was filed by a Republican congresswoman representing the state.
Described as a conservative approach to medical marijuana, the bill is titled the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act. However, leaders of the Palmetto State see the measure from a different angle. The SCGOP even paid to circulate a message from a sheriff attacking Davis’s bill.
Former Top Trump Aide Calls Out SCGOP
Triggered by his own state party, Mulvaney is now publicly criticizing SCGOP’s campaign against a bill to legalize medical marijuana.
In an op-ed for FITSNews that was published on Thursday, Mulvaney wrote that a medical cannabis bill the state Senate was debating this month “does not fall neatly” into any pre-existing notion of Republican orthodoxy.
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“By allowing doctors the right to prescribe medical-quality cannabis (derived from marijuana) for certain severely-ill patients, the bill raises issues related to everything from law enforcement to allowing patients and doctors more control over health care decisions,” Mulvaney wrote. “It is then, the precise sort of proposal that screams out for reasoned debate.”
For him, such discussion would have been “welcomed” if he was a legislator.
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Mulvaney, who continuously voted to back marijuana reform amendments, also pointed to federal “Right To Try” legislation, enacted under the Trump administration.
“If that debate had taken place, the party might also have been made aware of the overwhelming public support for limited medical marijuana,” Mulvaney wrote.
This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been reposted with permission.
