Lawmakers tasked with defining qualifying conditions for Nebraska medical cannabis
State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair kneels to talk with State Sen. Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue. Hansen is the lead sponsor on a 2025 bill to help give structure to the state's new medical cannabis laws. Holdcroft is the chair of the General Affairs Committee considering his bill. March 25, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — The path forward for a medical cannabis bill in the Nebraska Legislature appears more uncertain after a committee chair tasked his members with deciding what medical conditions would qualify for access in the state and which forms of medical cannabis would be allowed.
State Sen. Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue, chair of the Legislature's General Affairs Committee, described that task to his seven fellow committee members Wednesday. He provided them lists to choose a handful from the 'debilitating medical conditions' approved in neighboring Iowa, as well as what he said were the 42 conditions approved across the 38 other states with medical cannabis laws.
Holdcroft described the comprehensive list as 'everything but the kitchen sink' in talking with the Nebraska Examiner, explaining that the 'people were silent' on what medical conditions would apply when they overwhelmingly adopted legalizing medical cannabis in November.
'We make it legal for anything and everything, it's essentially recreational marijuana at that point,' Holdcroft said, a stance advocates of the ballot measure argue is wrong.
Legislative Bill 677, from State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, an effort aiming to flesh out a state regulatory scheme for medical cannabis, already faced an uphill climb to get out of committee among conservatives. Hansen, a Republican with a more Libertarian bent, said he still hopes to get his bill out of committee as 'clean and popular as we can.'
Some advocates who championed the 2024 ballot measure say their support of the bill could be in jeopardy if Holdcroft's more limited approach is taken up. They and Hansen continue to hunt for a path forward that remains closer to voters' intent.
'It's almost like whatever we kick out of committee is going to be 'the' bill that I would like to see, that the industry would like to see, that the people who voted for it would like to see,' Hansen said. 'And that the Legislature can live with, at least 33 people can.'
Holdcroft voiced his goal to get an amended version of LB 677 advanced by the end of next week. Any version would need at least five votes.
Crista Eggers, executive director of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana and 2024 campaign manager for the ballot measure, said the task that Holdcroft gave to his committee is disrespectful and that those concessions, among others, should be off the table.
She said advocates didn't work so hard, gathering petition signatures and stories of pain and suffering from Nebraskans, to let a few senators decide who should be helped. Eggers has advocated on behalf of her youngest son, Colton, and said she'd never tell someone one child's life was more worthy than someone else's.
'Shame on them for trying to do that,' Eggers said.
Eggers thanked Hansen for all his work in hearing from supporters, respecting ballot language and helping advocates. But she said the time for other lawmakers to voice opinions on what is 'right' is long overdue.
Lawmakers had their chance, but they repeatedly pushed supporters away, Eggers explained, and 'essentially shut the door on our face each and every time' until the ballot was the only option.
The measure to legalize up to 5 ounces of medical cannabis with a health care practitioner's recommendation passed with more than 71% of the vote, including majority support in all 49 legislative districts. A second measure, to set up the regulatory scheme through a new Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission, passed with 67%. It got majority support in 46 legislative districts.
Eggers said that while the campaign thought companion legislation to clarify the state's regulatory approach could be a 'best scenario' to help enact the will of the people, she said some lawmakers had gone too far.
'We are not in a position any longer, now that the people have spoken, to let our initiative be gutted into something that is not at all what the people passed,' Eggers said.
Holdcroft said he would like his committee to wade through the lists and identify about six conditions that would qualify for access to medical cannabis, though he said he wouldn't object to the Iowa list of:
Cancer, if the underlying condition or treatment produces severe or chronic pain, nausea or severe vomiting, or cachexia or severe wasting.
Seizures, including epilepsy.
Multiple sclerosis with severe or persistent muscle spasms.
AIDS or HIV.
Crohn's disease.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Any terminal illness, with a probable life expectancy of under one year, if the illness or its treatment produces severe or chronic pain, nausea or severe vomiting, or cachexia or severe wasting.
Parkinson's disease.
Chronic pain.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Severe, intractable autism with self-injurious or aggressive behaviors (including pediatric).
Ulcerative colitis.
Corticobasal degeneration.
Iowa state law also creates a path to expanding conditions via a recommendation by the Iowa Medical Cannabidiol Board and later adoption by the Iowa Board of Medicine.
'I think the approach should be: Keep it small, keep it restricted and do floor amendments if they want to expand it,' Holdcroft said.
According to Holdcroft's second list, cancer, epilepsy or seizures and HIV or AIDS are listed in 'every' state; multiple sclerosis is listed in 'nearly' all states; chronic pain, PTSD and Chrohn's disease or inflammatory bowel disease are listed in 'most' states; and Parkinson's disease, glaucoma or ALS are listed in 'many' states.
Other conditions on Holdcroft's lists range from sleep apnea, menstrual pain, sickle cell disease, tinnitus or 'any condition for which a physician would otherwise prescribe an opioid' to Lewy body disease, Alzheimer's, addiction recovery, hepatitis C or Huntington's disease.
'Conditions like severe nausea, cachexia/wasting syndrome and terminal illness are also frequently included,' Holdcroft's handouts state.
Holdcroft said three conditions are likely must-haves: childhood epilepsy, terminal cancer and lifelong chronic pain.
Part of that is because children with debilitating seizures were the face of the campaign, as moms and dads led the charge for more than 11 years at the statehouse.
One condition that Holdcroft cast doubt on and said would need to be more specific: PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Holdcroft said the lists are not final, or even preliminary, but should serve as a starting point.
State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, committee vice chair, said lawmakers should do as little as needed to give structure to voters' wishes but not 'undermine' or 'walk back' their will. He noted voters purposefully approved up to 5 ounces of cannabis and no specific conditions.
Edison McDonald, executive director of the Arc of Nebraska, said during the bill's hearing not to limit the conditions to prevent needing annual bills to expand the list.
Cavanaugh said the arbitrary deliberations could exclude voters who specifically supported the measures for themselves or loved ones.
'I think when you start picking arbitrary numbers of maladies that will qualify, that is a disservice,' he said.
Cavanaugh said he always thinks of one of his constituents alongside marijuana regulations. He described her as somebody's grandma in a fancy house in the Dundee neighborhood in Omaha, 'not somebody you would necessarily think of as an advocate for legal cannabis.' She was, he said, for her husband who had stomach cancer and had tried many drugs to help.
Cavanaugh's district in midtown Omaha had the highest support for the regulatory measure.
'My approach would be to do as little as necessary to make sure that people are going to be able to access this safely and legally,' Cavanaugh said.
He suggested delegating authority for putting together or researching qualifying conditions to the new Medical Cannabis Commission.
Hansen said he is working hard with committee members to see what they can 'live with,' but if those changes differ with what he or advocates can live with, then the bill will be adjusted during debate.
However, as recent filibuster-plagued sessions have shown, opponents can use legislative rules to block how many amendments can be added, further complicating the bill's path toward securing the 33 votes it would need to become law.
Under the Nebraska Constitution, amending voter-approved laws requires two-thirds of the 49-member Legislature.
Hansen said it may be necessary to get something passed first, to set up the rules and regulations and get the framework established, and not 'eat the whole apple in one setting.'
Hansen repeated the importance of getting something passed in 2025 as the voter-approved regulatory law is set to take effect in less than three months, making it virtually impossible for the new Medical Cannabis Commission — which has taken zero steps toward regulations — to have formal guidance in place by July 1. State licensing is supposed to begin by Oct. 1.
The Attorney General's Office has threatened to sue if the cannabis commission begins licensing.
Holdcroft said the bill being considered would delay both the regulatory and licensing deadlines by at least three months.
The law legalizing medical cannabis with a written doctor's note took effect Dec. 12, in all forms and for all conditions. However, with no guidance from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, many advocates have told the Nebraska Examiner that doctors are refusing to recommend the drug that would need to be purchased out of state.
Holdcroft has suggested lowering the 5-ounce authorization to 300 milligrams, a limit that was suggested by freshman State Sen. Jared Storm of David City via LB 483. Holdcroft also suggested beginning at pills, oils or tinctures as part of Storm's bill and expanding from there.
Smoking as a permissible form of use is a roadblock for a majority of the committee.
Much of the hesitation revolves around fear of legalizing recreational marijuana, which Hansen noted many on the committee 'vehemently oppose' — as do Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., who are urging the Legislature to pass no cannabis-related laws this spring.
Hansen said avoidance could risk potential legal challenges or public backlash, one of the 'fastest ways' he said to get voters to consider recreational marijuana.
'One of the fastest tracks of that happening in Nebraska is not doing what the people voted for or cutting this way too short or restricting it too much, or not passing something at all,' Hansen said.
Hansen said that if that did happen, he wouldn't be surprised if come November 2026, voters are left weighing whether to approve recreational marijuana. The Blair senator has described the path ahead, with no law change, where the commission could continue to have no funds and no way to do its job, as the 'Wild West.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Gen Z's stunning partisan split
America's youngest voters are far likelier to vote Republican than their older siblings. Why it matters: Generation Z may be better understood as two distinct sub-generations — divided, in large part, by how they experienced the shock of COVID-19. Stunning stat: The latest iteration of the Yale Youth Poll found extraordinary 18-point partisan gap between younger and older members of Generation Z. When asked whether they'd pick a Democratic or Republican candidate in the midterm elections, voters age 22–29 favored Democrats by 6.4 points, while those age 18–21 favored Republicans by 11.7 points. Zoom in: Rachel Janfaza — a youth political analyst and writer of The Up and Up, a newsletter about Gen Z — breaks down"Gen Z 1.0" and "Gen Z 2.0" based on how old they were during pandemic lockdowns and the rise of TikTok. Gen Z 1.0 graduated high school before COVID. They quarantined in college dorms or apartments with friends and came of age during President Trump's first term — shaped by the Women's March, gun control rallies, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Gen Z 2.0 was in high school or middle school during lockdowns, isolating at home with family and cut off from peers. The backlash to COVID-era policies pushed many younger voters right. And because they entered adulthood under President Biden, "counter-culture" often meant aligning with MAGA, Janfaza says. Between the lines: Older Gen Z-ers came of age on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Younger Gen Z-ers are native to TikTok. 9% of young adults said they got their news from TikTok in 2020, according to Pew Research. By 2024, that figure had surged to 39%. Trump's campaign seized on that shift early, reaching young voters on TikTok months before Biden or then–Vice President Harris. Many younger men were already plugged into content from MAGA-friendly figures like Theo Von, Joe Rogan and Dave Portnoy, who went on to host Trump on their platforms. Zoom out: As a whole, Americans under 30 still lean Democratic. But the partisan split within Gen Z came into sharp focus during the 2024 election. White men under 20 voted for Trump at higher rates than their late-20s counterparts — and even more than white Baby Boomer men, according to research from Democratic polling group Blue Rose Research. What to watch: Since taking power, Trump has lost significant ground with 18 to 29-year-olds in particular, according to an analysis of polls by data journalists G. Elliott Morris.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Supreme Court ruling scrambles battle for transgender care
The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a substantial blow to transgender-rights advocates in upholding a 2023 Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the future of transgender health in the U.S. but whose impact won't be felt right away. 'The immediate outcome is that it doesn't change anything,' said Kellan Baker, executive director of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at Whitman-Walker, a Washington-based nonprofit. 'It doesn't affect the availability or legality of care in states that do not have bans, and it simply says that states that have decided to ban this care can do so if they survive other challenges.' Twenty-seven Republican-led states since 2021 have adopted laws that ban transition-related care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and rare surgeries for minors. Laws passed in Arizona and New Hampshire — the first Northeastern state to have restricted gender dysphoria treatments for youth — only prohibit minors from accessing surgeries, a provision that was not at issue before the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision, the high court upheld a lower court ruling that found Tennessee's restrictions do not violate the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The state's law, which allows cisgender children and teens to access medications that it bans for trans minors, makes distinctions based on age and diagnosis, the courts ruled, rather than sex and transgender status. Three Tennessee families, a doctor and the Biden administration, along with attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal, argued the measure amounts to illegal sex discrimination, warranting heightened review. 'Having concluded it does not,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority on Wednesday, 'we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.' At least 10 legal challenges to state laws prohibiting health professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors argue the restrictions discriminate based on sex in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday could potentially weaken, in some cases, that line of attack, but it is not the only approach opponents of the laws have pursued. More than a dozen other lawsuits, including ones arguing equal protection under the U.S. Constitution, claim bans on transition-related health care for minors violate the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause, federal disability law or provisions of a state's constitution. In May, a federal judge struck Montana's ban on gender-affirming care for youth on grounds it violated privacy, equal protection and free speech rights guaranteed by its constitution. 'This ruling allows challenges to other state bans to continue,' said Baker, of Whitman-Walker, 'and they will.' Karen Loewy, senior counsel and director of Lambda Legal's constitutional law practice, told reporters on a Zoom call following Wednesday's ruling that the civil rights organization and others challenging state bans on gender-affirming care have other options at their disposal. 'The Supreme Court did not endorse the entirety of the lower court's ruling; it did not mandate or even greenlight other bans on gender-affirming medical care, even for young people, or other forms of discrimination,' she said. 'It really is about how it viewed Tennessee's in this specific way, and left us plenty of tools to fight other bans on health care and other discriminatory actions that target transgender people, including other equal protection arguments about transgender status discrimination, about the animus-based targeting of trans people.' Loewy added that the court's ruling also left the door open to arguments based on state and federal sex discrimination statutes and parental rights, which the justices did not address Wednesday. Nearly all of the cases brought against youth gender-affirming care bans argue those laws infringe on the rights of parents to make medical decisions on behalf of their children. 'As a parent, I know my child better than any government official ever will,' Samantha Williams, the mother of L.W., a transgender teenager who was at the center of the case before the Supreme Court, wrote in a New York Times op-ed after Wednesday's ruling. The Supreme Court's determination that Tennessee's law does not discriminate based on sex also raises questions about how opponents of transition-related health care for minors will use the ruling to inform their own legal strategies. In Arkansas, the ACLU successfully argued in 2023 that the first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for minors violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, as well as its Due Process Clause and the First Amendment's protections of free speech. 'We'll have to see, but it's possible that that ban could stand because the court made that decision on equal protection, as well as on other grounds,' said Lindsey Dawson, director for LGBTQ health policy at KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. 'This is likely to be an area that's going to face continued litigation and is not settled at this point in time.' In a statement Wednesday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) said he is 'preparing an official notification' for an appeals court detailing the implications of Wednesday's Supreme Court decision on the state's ban, which the Legislature passed — and former Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson initially vetoed — in 2021. 'Because our law is similar to Tennessee's law, today's decision has positive implications for our case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit,' he said. Montana and Arkansas are the only states whose bans on gender-affirming care for youth remain blocked by court orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit group that tracks LGBTQ laws. The Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday also declined, as some court watchers had anticipated, to apply the reasoning of its earlier decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shields employees from discrimination based on their sex or gender identity. Some lawsuits challenging state bans on care for minors have said the ruling should apply to contexts other than workplace discrimination. Former President Biden's administration similarly sought to use the court's reasoning in Bostock to back new nondiscrimination policies protecting transgender people in health care and sports, arguments largely rejected by conservative political leaders and courts. 'We still don't have a sole understanding of where Bostock might apply outside of Title VII, and it's going to be something that's important to watch,' Dawson said. 'It's certainly something that the Bostock court warned us about,' she said. 'In that decision, the court said, this court is making its ruling and it's quite narrow, but it's going to be for future courts to decide how this applies outside of Title VII. That remains a question mark.'
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
The Memo: Trump pumps brakes, lightly, on joining Israel's assault on Iran
President Trump is pumping the brakes, at least for the moment, on direct U.S. engagement in Israel's assault on Iran. On Thursday, Trump determined that he would make a 'decision on whether or not to go within the next two weeks,' according to a statement read by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump had also determined there was 'a chance for substantial negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future,' Leavitt said. But that pause could be unpaused at any moment, given Trump's mercurial nature, the volatility of the situation in the Middle East and the voices within American politics arguing that the time is ripe for the U.S. to deliver a decisive blow on Israel's behalf. Trump on Friday said the two-week period was the 'maximum' period that would elapse before he decided on the question. That left the overall positive muddy — but it also gave Trump some room to maneuver. And even his current equivocal stance shows him edging back toward his more anti-interventionist 'America First' instincts. That is a turn from earlier in the week, when Trump had seemed right on the brink of sending American forces in some capacity to back Israel's assault. At that point, he had bragged on social media that 'we' had control of the skies over Iran and, in a separate all-caps post, appeared to demand Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' Trump's fuzzy position since then reflects several different facts. First, for all his aggressiveness on the domestic stage, Trump has long been skeptical of foreign adventuring. In his first run for the presidency — a campaign that began a decade ago — he was critical of former President George W. Bush's war in Iraq, to an extent that was highly unusual for a Republican candidate. Relatedly, Trump's apparent flirting with war provoked significant pushback from influential figures within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base. The most prominent of these is Tucker Carlson, whose skeptical questioning of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a long interview went viral in recent days. Carlson, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and widely-watched influencers on the online right such as Theo Von have all argued that the dangers of getting sucked into a new Middle East war are acute. Then there is broader American public opinion to consider. There seems remarkably little appetite among the public for direct U.S. involvement in an attack on Iran. A Washington Post poll released on Wednesday found 45 percent opposed to U.S. airstrikes on Iran, just 25 percent supporting such action and 30 percent undecided. So, it's no surprise that Trump is returning to a long-established tactic of playing for time. As some sardonic media reports have noted since Thursday's 'two weeks' pronouncement, this is a timescale he has cited in the past for things that have never ultimately happened. One example was a promise to produce a detailed health plan that would purportedly replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed under President Obama. He has also cited 'two weeks' as a timeframe by which various facets of his views on the war in Ukraine would become clear. On Iran, the president is to be sure under some pressure from those who believe this is a rare opportunity to strike at Iran, debilitate its uranium enrichment capacity for good and perhaps topple the nation's theocratic leadership. This school of thought holds that Iranian proxies and allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the former regime of Bashar Assad in Syria have been so worn down (in the case of the first two) or removed (in the case of Assad) that stronger action is possible today than would have been the case even a couple of years ago. The Trump administration has its fair share of vehement supporters of expansive Israeli power. For example, Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has in the past been supportive of Israel's decades-long occupation of the West Bank, despite that occupation being deemed illegal by numerous interpretations of international law. Huckabee also wrote Trump a message in recent days — which Trump duly published on social media — in which the ambassador suggested that Trump was positioned to act as a vehicle of divine will regarding Israel. Yet another wrinkle in Trump's approach is his seeming split with his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on the question of whether Iran is actively seeking a nuclear weapon. Gabbard's belief flies in the face of the purported Israeli rationale for the attack on Iran. But on Friday, Trump was confronted by a reporter on the question. The reporter asked what evidence Trump had that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and said U.S. intelligence had reported that it had not seen such evidence. 'Well then, my intelligence community is wrong,' Mr. Trump insisted. 'Who in the intelligence community said that?' When the reporter named Gabbard, Trump shot back, 'She's wrong.' Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, is renowned for her general skepticism of American interventionism. Trump appears to yet hold out some hope of a breakthrough in talks with Iran. His envoy Steve Witkoff remains engaged on the issue. Any major Iranian concessions at this point would allow Trump to claim — as he often likes to do — that his high-risk approach to diplomatic negotiation had paid off. On the other hand, it's hard to see how any deal between the U.S. and Iran would placate the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, the possibility of such a deal in the first place is seen by some as one of the reasons Netanyahu launched the assault on Iran in the first place. For now, Trump has bought himself some time. But there are risks in every direction. The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
