Beshear signs bill allowing limited use of oil extracted from marijuana to treat children’s seizures

Gov. Steve Beshear has signed into law a bill allowing doctors at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, or those conducting a clinical trial approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to prescribe a marijuana extract to treat seizures in young people.

Denton (Herald-Leader photo)

Senate Bill 124 was sponsored by retiring Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville, who said its passage was unimaginable a decade ago, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. The General Assembly rejected legislation to authorize medical use of marijuana, but legislators and the Beshear administration agreed to SB 124 because tearful parents testified for the bill and cannabidiol contains none of marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient.

“Both our law enforcement leaders and our drug policy director worked with the legislators on this bill, and they gave the bill their support,” Beshear said in a press release. “Because the bill has been carefully constructed to require that any prescriptive recommendation for the oil can come only from physicians at the state’s research universities or through an FDA clinical trial, I am confident that this law will provide the relief that these families seek, without creating complications for our law enforcement community.”