DOVER, DE - The Delaware General Assembly has passed legislation that would expand Delawareans’ access to medical marijuana and update the First State’s 13-year-old medical marijuana program.
The bill, HB 285, passed the Senate today after previously passing the House in January and will now go on to Governor Carney’s desk.
HB 285, according to the Senate Majority Caucus, would expand access to the medical marijuana program to seniors, give more authority to healthcare providers to determine if medical marijuana would be beneficial to patients, and streamline the process of issuing marijuana registry ID cards.
“With the full legalization of adult-use recreational marijuana last year, my colleagues and I agreed that our medical marijuana law needed to be updated to help the people who rely on those products get the therapy they need,” State Senator Kyra Hoffner, who introduced the bill, said Thursday.
“These changes will allow healthcare providers to make sound decisions about which treatments best fit their patients, and make those treatments more readily accessible to people who need them the most,” Hoffner added. “I want to thank my colleagues in the General Assembly for continuing to support a responsible and reasoned approach to both recreational and medical marijuana in the First State.”
Among the changes to Delaware’s medical marijuana program, HB 285 would also allow someone certified to access medical marijuana in other states to access it in Delaware as well.
The expansion of the medical marijuana program comes nearly a year after adult recreational marijuana was legalized in Delaware. Carney allowed the recreational marijuana bill to go into law but did not sign the bill in 2023, but has signed previous medical marijuana legislation into law.
