A Kentucky legislative committee is considering a proposal to allow terminally ill patients to use medical marijuana in hospitals.
The legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Health Services heard testimony about the idea on Thursday, with advocates saying it can allow patients to relieve pain while still being alert and able to communicate with their families during the final days of their lives.
Jim Bartell, who has led efforts to pass such laws in states around the country, testified about the experience of his son, Ryan. The younger Bartell was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and was first hospitalized in a facility that didn’t allow medical cannabis use before being moved to another hospital that did.
In the first facility he was given fentanyl, which put him to sleep, meaning that “for three weeks we had no communications essentially with Ryan,” Bartell told lawmakers.
After transferring to a hospital in Seattle that did allow medical cannabis use Ryan “woke up the next morning, wide awake, pain free,” he said. “It was a miracle, and immediately he got on his phone, started texting his friends, ‘I’m awake, come and see me.’”
“Those last three weeks, he had 125 visitors—college friends, classmates,
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