South Carolina is the latest state to move forward with legislation that would allow children to access high-CBD oils to help control major seizure disorders. Or, at least that’s what lawmakers would like their constituents to believe. The reality is that they are wasting their time on a bill that won’t help anyone and gives false hope to suffering South Carolina families.
Last week, lawmakers moved the bill out of the Senate Medical Affairs Committee but not before tacking on a major change to the law: the oil has to first be approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration and must be administered as part of clinical trials. Basically, that means that a university in South Carolina would have to apply with the feds to study CBD oil, the CBD oil used in the study would have to be inspected by the feds and the children in the study may or may not receive the oil as part of the studies. Even then, there’s no provisions to allow continued access to it for children.
Basically, the legislature is saying that South Carolina families who are desperate for CBD treatments for their children should wait some more.
The bill’s sponsor, S.C. state Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican from Beaufort, said the changes were made at the request of the state medical association as well as from the State Law Enforcement Division over concerns the oil wouldn’t be pure. Yes, state cops say they are concerned with how pure the medicine will be. Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night knowing that you’re standing in the way of sick children’s access to medicine.
Davis rolled over on the changes in committee, but says he plans to amend the bill to allow doctors and physicians to recommend the oil directly to patients. He says he’ll file the change this week, likely by Wednesday. But he also says he’s going to move forward on finding a university willing to take part in FDA-controlled studies in case the bill moves forward in its current condition.
But if that is the case, it means that people like the Swing family will start looking elsewhere for a place to live – likely Colorado where dozens of families have relocated in the past year to be able to access state-legal CBD oil.
“It’s probably going to happen if these changes aren’t made or the bill doesn’t pass,” she said. “It’s still a big topic of conversation in our household. [Their daughter’s] seizures aren’t life-threatening like others are, so we have some more time to decide. If I was in that situation, we’d be there already.”