Medical marijuana law changes pass Senate as deadline looms

Randy Gleave, general manager at Tryke Companies Utah, talks about the 900 marijuana plants growing around him at the company’s medical cannabis cultivation facility in Tooele on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020. Utah lawmakers are considering some changes to the state’s medical cannabis laws. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

House expected to take action by end of the week

SALT LAKE CITY — With Utah’s new medical marijuana program set to start Sunday, a bill making a number of last-minute fixes sailed through the state Senate Monday, 24-0, and is headed to the House.

The sponsor of SB121, Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, said the hope is to have the bill heard by a House committee by Thursday and then voted on Friday, so it can be signed into law later that day by Gov. Gary Herbert.

What’s pressing, Vickers said, is that there still needs to be product testing before Utah’s first dispensary can open its doors in Salt Lake City on March 2, but there hasn’t been enough volume yet for independent laboratories to get involved so the bill allows state agriculture officials to conduct the needed analysis.

Other changes made by his bill include raising patient caps for doctors, clarifying that private employers don’t need to allow marijuana use and requiring the raw marijuana flower to be packaged in sealed containers with a 60-day expiration date, when it becomes illegal, rather than blister packs.

“Even though all these things, these tweaks, are not, in and of themselves, aren’t big, there are a number of them,” Vickers said of having to hurry the bill through on a tight deadline. “We just kind of got caught up in the minutia of the system.”

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