 Last year, the state of Alabama showed real progress when they legalized medical marijuana use.
This week, an Alabama Senator tried to push back progress and take away the rights of female medical marijuana users. Senator Larry Stutts introduced a bill that if it were passed, women would be required to show proof of a negative pregnancy test before they could purchase medical marijuana. The test must be completed within the 48 hours prior to their purchase, and they must be done by a state approved doctor or certified lab. The bill states that they would hold the dispensaries and the salespeople accountable for verifying and enforcing this. Senator Stutts proposal also wants the female patients to register all pregnancies with one of their certified doctors. In 2018 a similar proposal was made Oklahoma, shortly after that state had legalized medical marijuana. That law wasn’t quite as rigid, though, as it only required women to complete a pregnancy test prior to receiving a prescription, not before every purchase like the Alabama proposal. In Oklahoma, regulators backed down and eliminated the requirement after they faced lawsuits and opposition from their own State Attorney General’s office. At that time, the ACLU said ““Requiring women submit to a pregnancy test before their doctor may make a medical marijuana recommendation is discriminatory and a clear violation of the 14th Amendment,” Back in Alabama, the Senator’s bill will be reviewed and voted on by the Senate, where it will hopefully be voted out before the lawsuits will have to begin! Comments are closed.
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