Reference is to Printer's Date 5/31/16-S.
Amend the bill, as and if amended, Section 44-130-40, as contained in SECTION 1 by adding appropriately lettered subsections to read:
/ ( ) The
Veterans Equal Access Amendment to the Military Construction and
Veterans Affairs Appropriations passed by the United States
Congress provides that: 'Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall authorize
physicians and other health care providers employed by the
Department of Veterans Affairs to provide recommendations and
opinions to veterans who are residents of states with state
marijuana programs regarding the participation of veterans in
such state marijuana programs.' The Department of Health and
Environmental Control is directed to study: (1) the possibility
that a person experiencing an opioid-related overdose would be
decreased if access to cannabis was legally permitted; and (2)
the extent to which states have latitude by federal law for a
Veterans Affairs' physician licensed in the State of South
Carolina to provide a written certification that a veteran would
benefit from the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes rather
than being prescribed opioids. DHEC shall provide the General
Assembly a report on the findings by January 1, 2017.
( )
Notwithstanding Section 44-53-370(d)(4), it is not
unlawful for a veteran with an honorable discharge or a general
under honorable conditions discharge, whom the United States
Department of Veterans Affairs has diagnosed with
service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) arising
from the veteran's duty in an area that the President of the
United States designated by executive order as an area in which
United States armed forces are engaging or have engaged in
combat, to possess twenty-eight grams or one ounce or less of
marijuana or ten grams or less of hashish."
\
Renumber sections to conform.
Amend title to conform.