“We need to regulate it so that the people that need it are getting it but it doesn’t turn into something that eventually evolves into recreational use.”
By Zach Wendling, Nebraska Examiner
The legislative committee mulling how to help implement Nebraska’s voter-led medical cannabis laws awaits an amendment before lawmakers vote on whether to advance the bill.
Legislative Bill 677, from state Sen. Ben Hansen (R-Blair), seeks to help carry out the overwhelming voter approval to legalize and regulate medical cannabis in the state last fall. His bill would create a regulatory structure for licensing and detail how patients or caregivers could become registered to obtain up to five ounces of physician-recommended cannabis at one time.
State Sen. Rick Holdcroft (R-Bellevue), chair of the Legislature’s General Affairs Committee, said last week that he and seven other committee members were awaiting a final amendment that could help the currently deadlocked committee decide whether to advance the bill.
“The people have spoken, and we need to put in place the best possible regulatory structure,” Holdcroft told the Nebraska Examiner.
Hansen has said one key change in his amendment would be tracking medical cannabis through the state’s prescription drug monitoring program, similar to the process for opioids. At least nine states use a local prescription drug monitoring program to carry out local medicinal cannabis laws.
The Blair senator has also voiced support for defining a “qualifying medical condition” for which a health care practitioner may recommend the drug and requiring that a physician be required to be appointed to one of the two at-large spots on the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission charged with regulating and implementing the laws.
The new commission automatically includes the three commissioners of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Under current law, the governor has the option to appoint two more members.
‘The people have spoken’
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), have urged the Legislature to take no action on the laws. Hilgers’s office has threatened legal action if the new commission licenses new businesses later this year or in the future.
However, every member of the General Affairs Committee in talking with the Examiner said some legislation could be helpful in upholding the will of the people.
Holdcroft, as chair, has already designated LB 677 as one of his committee’s two 2025 priority bills, increasing the chances the bill would be debated by the full Legislature, if it moves forward.
The final amendment could be key to LB 677’s prospects this year as Holdcroft and state Sens. John Cavanaugh (D-Omaha), Dan Quick (D-Grand Island) and Victor Rountree (D-Bellevue) have already voiced support for advancing the bill. The bill needs at least five votes to advance to the floor.
Cavanaugh, the committee vice chair, as well as Quick and Rountree, said the will of the people is clear about legalized medicinal cannabis.
“I think that we should disturb that as little as possible while giving structure to it,” Cavanaugh said.
Rountree echoed that “the people are wise,” while Quick noted medical cannabis could be the right alternative for some people compared to opioid prescriptions.
Committee member caution
The other half of the committee still has some concerns. State Sens. Bob Andersen (R) of north-central Sarpy County, Stan Clouse (R-Kearney), Barry DeKay (R-Niobrara) and Jared Storm (R-David City). Storm brought a competing cannabis-related bill to the committee this year that would limit the forms of legal medical cannabis with a much smaller legal amount.
Much of the caution centers on a desire to prevent a legal path in the future toward recreational marijuana. Some senators also have said they are concerned because the substance remains listed as a Schedule I drug by the federal government. Federal agencies have taken steps toward reclassification, and President Donald Trump has also voiced support for legalized cannabis.
Thirty-eight other states legalized medicinal cannabis before Nebraska.
“We need to maintain the will of the people, but we need to do it in a responsible way,” Andersen said last week.
Clouse and DeKay said they would like to limit or eliminate smoking as an acceptable form of taking or ingesting medical cannabis. Public smoking is already prohibited under the state’s Clean Indoor Air Act passed in 2008, similar to cigarettes and vapes.
DeKay said his preference would be limiting medicinal cannabis to pills, oils or ointments.
“I will support medical marijuana but it may not be totally in agreement with what everybody wants to on the committee,” DeKay said.
Under the voter-approved laws, medical cannabis is legal in all forms with a written physician’s recommendation. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services had not issued any guidance on the laws as of earlier this month.
Clouse and Storm have said a physician should serve on the commission, and Clouse said the fifth spot should be reserved for a law enforcement representative.
“I think there is a need and use for medicinal cannabis and marijuana,” Clouse said. “I think we need to regulate it so that the people that need it are getting it but it doesn’t turn into something that eventually evolves into recreational use.”
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, the group that spearheaded the ballot initiative, has focused its attention on Andersen, Clouse and DeKay to find one more vote to get LB 677 to the floor.
Gov. Jim Pillen (R) has not weighed in on Hansen’s bill but in December, when signing the measures into law, joined Hilgers in stating that “serious issues” remained about the validity and legality of the laws.
‘Genie out of the bottle’
Storm in January brought LB 483 to limit permissible cannabis forms to pills and liquid tinctures, but he’s since said he is open to oils, creams, ointments, suppositories or nebulizers. He’s pointed to the medical program in Iowa that prohibits smoking cannabis in any form.
A freshman senator from David City, Storm said at his bill’s hearing that he has sympathy for those suffering but is focused on getting the regulations right.
“I think that we slow walk it and we get this right, because if we get it wrong, you let the genie out of the bottle, you’re not getting it back in,” Storm said earlier this month, suggesting delaying action to 2026. “So we slow walk this, do what’s right, truly help people the best we possibly can.”
Hilgers said last week at a news conference that the February 28 amendment from Hansen risked rewriting the voter-approved process and creating “an entire infrastructure and licensing scheme to set the stage for recreational marijuana.”
“It is not the will of the people to take an opening on medicinal marijuana, rip up the regulatory structure passed by the people, and pass something that appears to have been drafted entirely by, or mostly, by out-of-state interests who want to exploit the Nebraska market for their own particular profit,” he said.
Hilgers encouraged anyone interested in the issue, which he described as “most Nebraskans,” to read Hansen’s latest amendment “and walk away with any other impression other than this is set up for a recreational marijuana industry.”
Hilgers’s office opposed LB 677 and threatened legal action against the Medical Cannabis Commission if it licenses businesses. Hilgers said his office would have “more to say in the coming days and weeks” on the proposals.
Hansen has repeatedly pushed back on criticisms that his bill could lead to recreational marijuana use, telling the committee that is a conversation for the future while his bill seeks to address and avoid the potential “Wild West” if no bills are passed this year.
Holdcroft the past two years voted against recreational marijuana on the Judiciary Committee, but, medicinally, “the people have spoken,” he said. Like Hansen, Holdcroft too has pushed back on the Attorney General’s Office, which would have a dedicated assistant attorney general under LB 677 to assist the commission.
“What I’m hearing here…is the attorney general wants us to keep this law stupid, where he can find some loopholes in it and make it illegal,” Holdcroft told a representative of the AG’s office at LB 677’s hearing. “The Legislature just isn’t that kind of body.”
‘Wait and see’
Tight deadlines present another set of wrinkles in setting up the new medical cannabis laws.
Under the voter-approved law, the Medical Cannabis Commission has until July 1 to establish criteria to accept or deny applications for registered establishments. Registrations must begin by October 1.
Hobert Rupe, executive director of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, who under Hansen’s bill could serve the same role on the Medical Cannabis Commission, told the General Affairs Committee and Appropriations Committee last week that his team has no budget for the medical cannabis work.
“As you’re aware, the public passed the initiatives,” Rupe told the Appropriations Committee on Thursday. “Well, what they did was they created an agency without any budget or any staff.”
Rupe said those funds could come either through the next two-year state budget or an accompanying appropriation through Hansen’s bill, if passed. Without a budget, the commissioners can’t have a public hearing without paying for or creating a public hearing notice.
The Examiner asked state Sen. Rob Clements (R-Elmwood), chair of the Appropriations Committee, on Thursday, before Rupe’s budget hearing, what the committee would do with the new commission. Clements said it was the first he had heard of the new commission and its budget.
Rupe told Clements’s committee that getting a cannabis bill out of committee could help him and his commissioners “hang our hat on” it taking effect and plan ahead, given the timeline.
“I hope that whatever comes out of the Legislature…might extend those deadlines a little bit,” Rupe said. “Even so, even if that’s extended, that’s not a lot of time to do a stand-up agency, even if they are sharing resources with us.”
The latest amendment to Hansen’s bill would delay the initial rulemaking to October 1 and set a first round of applications between October 13 and December 15. Those applications would need to be approved or denied by March 16, 2026.
Of the budget, Clements told Rupe of Hansen’s pending bill: ”I guess we’ll have to wait and see what comes out there then.”
Hansen’s bill, because it would amend legal language from a ballot measure, would require at least 33 votes to take effect, regardless of any filibuster, under the Nebraska Constitution.
Timeline of legal challenges
John Kuehn v. Secretary of State Bob Evnen and ballot sponsors Anna Wishart, Crista Eggers and Adam Morfeld (alleging fraud and that ballot measures should not have been put on the ballot)
- September 12: Lawsuit filed to invalidate medical cannabis petitions. Evnen and the Attorney General’s Office later joined forces with Kuehn against the proposed laws.
- October 29 – November 4: Civil trial is held against the medical cannabis ballot measures.
- November 5: Nebraskans overwhelmingly approve measures to legalize and regulate medical cannabis.
- November 26: Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong rules in favor of the ballot measure sponsors, upholding the vote of the people.
- December 5: Appeal filed to Nebraska Court of Appeals, days later picked up by the Nebraska Supreme Court.
- March 10: Kuehn files a brief explaining the reason for appeal.
- Early April: Evnen’s brief regarding the appeal or cross-appeal, if any, is due.
- Late April/Early May: The ballot sponsors’ brief or cross-appeal, if any, is due. After this point, the case can be listed as ready for oral arguments at a future date.
John Kuehn v. Gov. Jim Pillen; Secretary of State Bob Evnen; ballot sponsors Anna Wishart, Crista Eggers and Adam Morfeld; Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services CEO Steve Corsi; State Treasurer Tom Briese; Nebraska Tax Commissioner Jim Kamm; and three commissioners on the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission Bruce Bailey, Harry Hoch, Jr. and Kim Lowe (alleging medical cannabis laws are unconstitutionally preempted by the federal government)
- December 10: Lawsuit filed to stop the implementation of the ballot measures.
- December 11: Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong declines to block measures from taking effect.
- December 12: Pillen signs ballot measures into law to legalize and regulate medical cannabis.
- January 10: Kuehn amends lawsuit to include Corsi, Briese, Kamm, Bailey, Hoch and Lowe.
- February 14: Pillen, Evnen, Corsi, Briese and Kamm (the “state defendants”) file to dismiss the case.
- February 17: Ballot sponsors file to dismiss the case.
- Late March: Any remaining motions to dismiss or briefs in support of motions to dismiss are due.
- Late April: Kuehn deadline to reply to motions to dismiss.
- Mid-May: Any reply briefs to Kuehn are due.
- May 20: Judge Strong will host an in-person hearing at 10 a.m. on the motions to dismiss.
This story was first published by Nebraska Examiner.
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
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