New bill seeks to make medical marijuana more accessible and affordable for Utahns

SALT LAKE CITY — A bill will be heard on Wednesday to streamline Utah’s medical marijuana regulations. Its goal is to make it more accessible to those who need it.

Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, is one of the sponsors of HB203.

She said not as many people are taking advantage of the program as it currently stands. She believes that is due, in part, to the cost and accessibility.

“One of the main reasons patients are leaving the medical cannabis program is cost,” she said. “The cost of the medication is just too high, and we wanna make sure that patients are not leaving the program to seek, you know, medication outside the medical cannabis program.”

How does medical marijuana work in Utah and what could change?

She and other lawmakers worry people are looking to the black market or to out-of-state cannabis products, which are illegal in Utah.

She said part of the costs for these medications come from an over-regulation of the industry.

“We’re trying to find ways to maximize efficiencies so that the cost of doing business is as low as possible while maintaining safety,” she said.

Currently, there are three license types for the medical cannabis program. One is for growing the plants, another for creating the medicine and then the pharmacy license.

Under this new bill, more pharmacies would be allowed to open physical stores. This would increase the accessibility of medical marijuana. Currently, there are only 15 licenses total allowed for pharmacy locations and all are in use.

“We need to be really cognizant of the fact that there’s a lot of access to pharmacies along the Wasatch Front and very little access to pharmacies outside in any of the rural areas of our state,” Daily-Provost said.

Amendments would increase the number of licenses to 18 available to be issued in the state.

Consequences of over-regulation

Some efficiencies to the program would include instructions on when a department can seize and test products.

Due to vague wording on previous amendments, Dailey-Provost said there has been repeated testing and over-inspection on already approved products.

“It is not uncommon for inspectors to come into license holder sites weekly,” she said. “The cost of repeated testing on products, citations in license, you know, license holders, facilities that don’t necessarily have anything to do with patient safety, etcetera”

All this extra testing trickles down into the final cost for the patient.

The amendments to the bill state that a cannabis batch or products cannot be tested more than three times if it has previously passed all other testing requirements. This should ensure that safety is still guaranteed, but the final costs will be lower for the customer.

A big part of the bill will be to create more transparency. The bill would set rules on when a product can be tested, or how often a site should be inspected. It would also make it so license holders and inspectors can be sure the job is being done correctly and to specified standards.

“I’ve had a lot of reports for citations or warnings issued for things that don’t have anything to do with patient safety or patient health,” Daily-Provost said. “That’s just not tenable for me.”

She said right now everyone is just trying to do a good job and to keep people safe, which doesn’t always work.

“I don’t think our agencies are being punitive or intentionally malicious about it,” Daily-Provost said. “It’s just a system that is not working.”

The bill would also allow for additional grants to go to low-income medical marijuana patients that will subsidize the cost of their medication. The money for the grants would come from the medical cannabis enterprise fund. Dailey-Provost said the fund collects $3 for every prescription filled, so there is currently money that can be utilized.

Related: Utah doctor says more medical marijuana pharmacies needed in the state