Patient advocates for Nebraska medical marijuana advocates after the state board voted to severely limit the number of marijuana products that would be available and the number of tillagers and dispensaries allowed in the state.
According to Lincoln Journal Star, the Nebraska Medical Marijuana Commission passed regulations Tuesday restricted no more than 12 dispensaries and four tillers in the state.
And they will be banned from selling marijuana flowers or food.
Rules are the final ones before Jim Pillen, a Republican who opposes MMJ, signs.
The committee will be on the deadline for issuing the rules, which will allow it to approve its first business license application by October 1.
But advocates say commissioners decided to quickly approve a very different regulation that “not only ignores” the will of voters, said Crista Eggers, executive director of Neblasta Medical Marijuana.
“They chopped it up,” she told the Nebraska examiner.
“By approving rules that pile up on new obstacles and illegally limiting the form of marijuana, they are removing what people are asking for on the ballot box,” Eggs said.
Nebraska Medical Marijuana Business Opportunities Co., Ltd.
The new regulations approved by the Commission limit the number of business licenses to:
- Four farmer.
- Four product manufacturers.
- 12 pharmacies.
The earlier emergency regulations approved last fall and approved in the summer have no restrictions on cultivators and manufacturers, according to the examiners.
Under the new rules, marijuana food is prohibited and can smoke and evaporate marijuana.
According to Journal Star, cannabis can be consumed in “oral tablets, capsules or tin agents, as well as through gels, oils, creams or other topical use.”
Cannabis patients are also banned from obtaining or possessing the original cannabis plant – a point that also contradicts the voter-approved plan 437.
Nebraska voters support the legalization of medical marijuana in November last year with a vast majority.
But since then, efforts to launch the MMJ program have been litigated and opposed by senior state elected officials.
A expanded MMJ regulation bill failed last spring in the state legislature, partly because of Pillen, state Attorney General Mike Hilgers and U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, both Republicans, according to the reviewers.
