SC law enforcement, conservative group decry medical marijuana bill ahead of debate

A group of law enforcement officers gathered Wednesday at the State House to decry the upcoming South Carolina Senate debate over a bill to legalize medical marijuana.

Dozens of officers, including State Police Chief Mark Keel and Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook, served as the backdrop for a press conference hosted by conservative Christian group Palmetto Family, which called on lawmakers to vote down the cannabis bill shortly before the Senate kicked off their debate.

“Today, we are surrounded by some of the greatest group of men and women in law enforcement, who have been vocal supporters of a stance that says we do not need to set up a marijuana industrial complex in the state of South Carolina,” Palmetto Family President Dave Wilson said. “That’s what S150 is set out to do — to establish a whole new mechanism for us to be able to have marijuana in South Carolina.”

Wilson warned that if the state legalized medical marijuana, it would be a slipperly slope leading toward legalizing recreational marijuana.

The bill is once again sponsored by state Rep. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, who has been attempting to get a medical marijuana bill passed for seven years.

Thirty-six states have legalized medical marijuana.

Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry, like many law enforcement officials before him, expressed concerns that medical marijuana could be a gateway to other, more serious drugs.

“As a prosecutor, I saw first-hand over over again, the heartbreak, the violence that the devastation the drugs cause (to) family,” Hembree said. “In almost every case, nearly every case that child, that brother, that sister, that mother started with marijuana, nearly every case. And to say it’s not a gateway drug is foolish.”

Wilson pointed out that South Carolina was already in the throws of the opioid crisis. More than 1,000 South Carolinians died of an overdose in 2020 — a 59% increase in deaths over the previous year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, state medical providers wrote 60.4 opioid prescriptions for every 100 people, higher than the national rate, according to a State Emergency Management Division report.

“We’ve got a problem, and whether or not the folks who are supporting this want to admit that or not, we are facing a drug crisis in South Carolina and do not need that to continue,” Wilson said.

Hembree added that he didn’t think it was the Legislature’s place to say what medicines are good and effective and which are not. Medical marijuana has not received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

If the Legislature approved medical marijuana, Hembree said it could be misleading to patients seeking out medical treatment for their chronic diseases.

Though no law enforcement officers were tapped to speak at the news conference, many have been vocally opposed to the legalization of medical marijuana.

“My position on medical marijuana is well-known and unchanged. Until it is approved by the FDA, prescribed by a physician, and dispensed by a pharmacist, I remain opposed to it,” Keel told The State last week. “Doctors cannot legally prescribe it and pharmacists cannot legally dispense it.”

The bill is also opposed by Kevin Tolson, president of the state’s Sheriff’s Association.

In a Jan. 20 email from the South Carolina Republican Party, Tolson called the bill “a dangerous idea.”

“I understand supporters of this bill are seeking to bring comfort and relief to friends and family members who are suffering from debilitating illnesses,” Tolson wrote. “I have extreme compassion for those individuals, but I can’t endorse or even ignore the attempt to provide relief through illegal methods, especially when those attempts will jeopardize public safety.”