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SC Senate committees tackle medical marijuana, school district consolidation

The two committees met within an hour of each other on Thursday

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina Senate Committee is sending a resolution to the full Senate that would urge Washington to relax restrictions on research into medical marijuana.

Senate Bill 169 is a concurrent resolution.

“Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring: That the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina hereby urges Congress to take immediate and additional steps to promote and actively pursue scientific research and testing into the potential use of cannabis to treat other medical conditions and illnesses by removing the federal statutory and regulatory barriers that prevent these scientific endeavors,” a portion of the bill reads.

Senator Greg Hembree, a Republican from Horry County, is a sponsor of the bill.

“I do believe there are people that could benefit from marijuana-based compounds, derivatives from marijuana, for legitimate medical purposes, I just legitimately believe that's true,” Hembree told WLTX after the Medical Affairs Committee met on Thursday.

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The Horry County Senator said an emphasis on medical research would put marijuana-based treatment decisions back in the hands of doctors and agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“The South Carolina General Assembly is quite frankly not qualified to decide which medicines you should take and what doses. That's the FDA's job not our job,” Hembree said.

But the Committee showcased the debate remains on the medicinal effect of marijuana itself.

“I've done a lot of studying recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are reports and studies and research that says that there is medicinal value and then there's studies that say there's not,” said Senator Kevin Johnson, a Clarendon County Democrat.

Another member of the committee discussed his father’s use of marijuana-derived medicinal treatment, which led to more discussion about the effective use of marijuana-derived products to treat medical conditions.

Hembree said his resolution is an effort to keep medical marijuana controlled and not in the hands of so-called marijuana doctors and dispensaries.

“I mean it's medical and it's not medical and I think that's a- that exposes our citizens to danger and the FDA is the best way to go forward with this. To treat it like every other drug, you get a prescription and you go to CVS or Walgreens or wherever and you get it at the drug store just like anything else,” Hembree explained.

The resolution was approved out of committee and will go before the full South Carolina Senate.

One of the votes supporting the resolution was Senator Tom Davis.

“We can, as a General Assembly, express to Washington DC that cannabis is medicine. People are suffering and they ought to get out of the way of what doctors think is in the best interest of a patient. it ought to be the doctor that decides what a patient takes, not politicians,” Davis said after the meeting.

Davis introduced his own medical marijuana bill earlier this week.

Both Davis and Hembree said they would not support recreational marijuana use in South Carolina and Davis stressed his bill is a conservative and highly-regulated attempt to normalize medical marijuana in the state.

15 minutes later, a different Senate subcommittee started discussion on another controversial topic, school district consolidation.

An Education Committee subcommittee, led by Senator Tom Young, introduced Senate Bill 203.

The bill would create criteria to consolidate school districts, in the same county, as early as 2020 and 2021.

School districts would have to meet at least two of the four criteria listed in the bill to be considered for consolidation.

Average daily membership is less than 1,500

School district has a school with an accreditation status of probation or denied

School district has a state designation of fiscal warning or caution

Risk assessment of medium or high or has schools that have been in improvement status for three years

The subcommittee heard testimony from South Carolina’s superintendent of education, Molly Spearman, and two other stakeholders.

After the first hearing of the new session, Young explained why he feels school consolidation is necessary.

“Administrative efficiencies and increasing opportunities for students in the districts that are impacted. At the end of the day, what we're trying to do is to try to make sure the dollars that are spent go the farthest they can to better educate the students of this state and to achieve administrative efficiencies. I understand that this is not an easy issue, but it's an issue that needs to be talked about,” said Senator Young.

School district consolidation is not a new idea. It has been a topic of debate as a potential way to reform South Carolina’s public school system and will be again for the new legislative session.

The subcommittee did not take action on the bill Thursday, they'll meet again in two weeks.

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