Tenth Amendment Center: Signed by the Governor: Arizona Legalizes Industrial Hemp with Federal Approval

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

PHOENIX, Ariz. (May 21, 2018) – Last week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill into law legalizing the production of industrial hemp within a research pilot program. Although the law requires federal compliance, it could still be a first step toward developing a full-fledged hemp industry in the state.

Sen. Sonny Borrelli introduced Senate Bill 1098 (SB1098) in January. The law creates a licensing program for the cultivation of industrial hemp “as part of an agricultural pilot program for the purpose of research into the growth, cultivation and marketing of industrial hemp as authorized by the Agricultural Act of 2014.”

SB1098 passed the Senate by a 29-0 vote, and the House approved the measure 56-3. With the governor’s signature, the law will go into effect Aug. 3, 2018.

While Arizona’s research only hemp program will not allow a hemp industry to develop in the state, it takes a small step in that direction. In fact, it’s highly unlikely the program will remain federal compliant, even with the state’s best efforts. A recent federal court ruling made virtually every hemp program in the U.S. federally non-compliant.

FEDERAL FARM BILL

In 2014, Congress cracked the door open for hemp in the U.S. with an amendment to the 2014 Farm Bill. The law allows hemp cultivation for research purposes, but prohibits “commercial” production.

The “hemp amendment” in the 2014 farm bill  —

…allows State Agriculture Departments, colleges and universities to grow hemp, defined as the non-drug oil-seed and fiber varieties of Cannabis, for academic or agricultural research purposes, but it applies only to states where industrial hemp farming is already legal under state law.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Drug Enforcement Agency released a “statement of principles” to guide interpretation of the hemp section in the Farm Bill. It states, “The growth and cultivation of industrial hemp may only take place in accordance with an agricultural pilot program to study the growth, cultivation, or marketing of industrial hemp established by a State department of agriculture or State agency responsible for agriculture in a State where the production of industrial hemp is otherwise legal under State law.”

In short, the current federal law authorizes farming of hemp – by research institutions, or within state pilot programs – for research only. Farming for commercial purposes by individuals and businesses remains prohibited.

The definition of “commercial” and the extent to which sales and marketing are allowed under the rubric of “research” remains murky. This has created significant confusion.

The statement of principles also asserted that industrial hemp programs are limited to fiber and seed. It didn’t mention the CBD oil or other edible hemp products. The DEA has apparently interpreted that to mean they remain illegal. The agency has flat-out said CBD cannot be sold under any circumstances. An Indiana TV station interviewed DEA spokesman Rusty Payne who said, “It’s not legal. It’s just not.”

Several states with federally-compliant hemp programs, such as Kentucky, North Dakota, Minnesota and New York, have grown significant acreage under federally-approved research programs. This takes the first step, but with federal shackles in place, these states are not legally allowed to develop any kind of commercial market. Ironically, many of these “federally compliant” programs are not actually federally compliant.

Recognizing its limited research program was hindering the development of the industry, West Virginia dumped its federally compliant hemp program during the 2017 legislative session and will now issue federally non-compliant commercial licenses to growers. West Virginia Public Broadcasting confirmed limits imposed by the old program due to its conformity with federal law were holding back the development of a viable hemp industry and everyday farmers cannot benefit.

“But because of the strict requirements under the 2014 bill, growers are not able to sell their plants and cannot transport them across state lines to be turned into those usable products. That’s limited the ability to create a real hemp industry in the state.”

OTHER STATES

Other states, including Colorado, Oregon, Maine and Vermont have simply ignored federal prohibition and legalized industrial hemp production within their state borders.

Colorado was the first state with widespread commercial hemp production. Farmers began growing hemp in southeast Colorado back in 2013 and the industry is beginning to mature. The amount of acreage used to grow industrial hemp in the state doubled in 2016 to nearly 5,000 acres, and nearly doubled again in 2017.

The Oregon legislature initially legalized industrial hemp production in 2009. While it was technically legal to grow hemp in the state, farmers didn’t take advantage of the opportunity for nearly five years. When the Oregon Department of Agriculture finally put a licensing and regulatory program in place early in 2014, farmers began growing hemp. The initial regulatory structure placed significant limits on hemp farming and effectively locked small growers out of the market. In 2016, Gov. Kate Brown signed House Bill 4060 into law. It relaxed state laws regulating hemp already on the books and made the crop more like other agricultural products. Within months, the Oregon Department of Agriculture had already promulgated new rules under the reformed law. According to Oregon’s Cannabis Connection, the rules set the stage to creates a “massive” medical hemp market. The state produced 3,469 acres of hemp in 2017.

Both Colorado and Oregon demonstrate how loosening rules at the state level encourage the market and allow hemp a legitimate commercial hemp industry to develop.

HUGE MARKET FOR HEMP

According to a 2005 Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. is the only developed nation that hasn’t developed an industrial hemp crop for economic purposes.

Experts suggest that the U.S. market for hemp is around $600 million per year. They count as many as 25,000 uses for industrial hemp, including food, cosmetics, plastics and bio-fuel. The U.S. is currently the world’s #1 importer of hemp fiber for various products, with China and Canada acting as the top two exporters in the world.

During World War II, the United States military relied heavily on hemp products, which resulted in the famous campaign and government-produced film, “Hemp for Victory!”

Mike Maharrey
May 21, 2018 at 09:49AM

Tenth Amendment Center: New Info on the Constitution’s Ratification. Part II: New Hampshire

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

The first installment in this series reviewed highlights from the recently-issued Volume 27 of the Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States, which covers South Carolina. This second installment continues with highlights from Volume 28, which covers New Hampshire.

New Hampshire was a small state, but its ratification was significant. It was one of only two states—the other was North Carolina— whose convention adjourned rather than approve the Constitution. The New Hampshire convention, like its North Carolina counterpart, later re-assembled for purposes of ratifying. (Rhode Island initially rejected the document in a referendum, but later ratified by convention.)

The initial session of the New Hampshire convention met in February, 1788. When it reconvened and ratified the following June, it made New Hampshire the ninth state to approve the document, bringing it to life for the ratifying states. As I explain in my book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant, the framers apparently chose the nine-state threshold because Americans were familiar with it and, perhaps more importantly, the conventions of even the smallest nine states represented a majority of the American people. Furthermore, New Hampshire’s decision spurred adoption in New York and Virginia.

The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant also explains that, as valuable as Hamilton, Madison’s, and Jay’s “Federalist Papers” are, we should not rely too heavily on them. This is because The Federalist’s influence on the ratifiers was not as great as we might imagine. The editors of the Volume 28 report that not a single New Hampshire newspaper reprinted even one complete essay from The Federalist. Only one New Hampshire newspaper printed part of single essay. By contrast, the New Hampshire Spy reproduced all of John Dickinson’s Fabius essays, and the New Hampshire Gazette reprinted five of the nine.

Here are some other highlights from Volume 28:

1. The book reprints two essays by “A Friend to the Rights of the People” and “A Friend to the Republic”—apparently the same anti-federalist author. The essays advance some unique points against the Constitution—for example, that it would make it harder for Vermont to become a state. But the real usefulness of these essays is that they serve as a compendium of nearly all the important arguments against the Constitution: (1) The instrument provided for congressional terms that were too long, (2) it gave too much power to Congress over congressional elections, (3) it contained insufficient curbs on congressional pay, (4) it allowed a standing army in time of peace, (5) it did not permit Congress to end the slave trade for 20 years, (6) its definition of the judicial power were too expansive, (7) the document prescribed no religious test for federal office, (8) its fiscal restraints were insufficient, and (9) it contained no bill of rights.

When discussing congressional terms, the “Friend” observes, “No wise man will contract with a menial servant for four or six years at once; he will chuse to engage him for a short term first, and if he proves faithful, he will renew the contract, if otherwise, he can easily discard him.”

His observation about congressional pay is similar: “No wise householder will let his servants make a law to fix their own wages, or dip as deep as they please in his coffers.” This concern led to proposal of the original second amendment, restricting congressional pay. The states finally adopted it in 1992, as the 27th amendment.

2. The volume includes a “political sketch” by William Vans Murray, which argues that the government should treat all religions equally—the view eventually adopted by the First Amendment. Vans Murray includes this memorable line: “Policy . . . is often little more than the passion of the day sanctified by law and sophistry.” Modern readers can certainly think of many contemporary examples!

3. Also on religion, the volume includes an exchange at the New Hampshire ratifying convention between Deacon Mattias Stone, who argued that federal officeholders should profess a belief in God, and the Reverend Samuel Langdon, who responded that religion was separate from the civil power and “must stand on its own ground.”

4. The book features memorable convention speeches by anti-federalist Joshua Atherton (attacking the Constitution’s 20-year tolerance for the slave trade) and federalist Judge Samuel Livermore, who construed the Constitution’s grant of judicial power more narrowly than federal courts were later to interpret it.

5. Reprinted in this volume is an article from the New Hampshire Spy that also appeared in Volume 16. It lists the benefits of newspapers, and serves as evidence that “freedom of the press” extended as much to non-political as to political subjects.

6. I noted in a recent study that modern writers sometimes “ride one horse too far.” By this I mean they claim constitutional interpretation should serve one particular value, such as “democracy” or “public trust,” at the expense of others. In fact, the Founders balanced their core constitutional values when adopting the Constitution— making tradeoffs in pursuit of liberty, effective government, democratic republicanism, fiduciary government (“public trust”), and decentralization. Volume 28 reprints a New Hampshire Gazette article illustrating how liberty and effective government were balanced against each other.

7. The same Gazette piece strengthens the conclusion that the constitutional term “Commerce” encompasses only a some economic activities—not the entire economy. Although modern jurists often suggest economic interdependence is something new (thereby justifying radical expansion of the Commerce Power), in fact the Founders fully understood  that commerce was interdependent with other economic activities, such as agriculture or manufacturing. Yet they had good reasons for dividing jurisdiction over different economic activities between the federal government and the states. The fact that commerce affects other economic activities is seldom good cause for blurring the distinction.

8. Just as an item in Volume 27 (South Carolina) gives comfort to those who interpret the Constitution as a direct grant from the American people, so the New Hampshire volume contains a fragment favoring the competing “interstate compact” theory. A writer calling himself “Alfredus” in the Exeter Freeman’s Oracle newspaper argued that “The Constitution now before the public is not a compact between individuals, but between several sovereign and independent political societies . . . “

Michael Boldin
May 21, 2018 at 04:03AM

Tenth Amendment Center: The Republican Threat to Your Gun Rights

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

With Republicans in control in Washington D.C., many Second Amendment activists assumed their right to keep and bear arms was safe.

They’re not.

When one political party controls the House, Senate, and the presidency, the public expects the legislative and executive branches will work in tandem to further their party’s political goals. Known as ‘unified government’, the assumption is that legislation will be easier to pass when one party controls all the steps. Working in a unified government seems like it is worth the wait; indeed it doesn’t happen often. But deracinated from any principles, a unified government can be dangerous to our liberties.

In November 2016, the Republican Party achieved its goal of unified government. The last time this happened was in 2001 under George W. Bush. Though the 2016 election was unconventional in many ways, some evergreen political issues held voters’ attention.

The Second Amendment was an important issue for Republican voters. It was also important for Democrats, if for different reasons. Republican voters did not want to live under the specter of Hillary Clinton gun control after finishing out eight uneasy years fretting over an Obama White House.

The controversy and debate around firearms rose to a crescendo during Obama’s administration.  A number of high profile public shootings and the rhetoric that followed caused many to believe that the Obama administration was a pen stroke away from a sweeping firearms ban.

Estimates of the number of mass shootings vary. Different groups use different metrics to define a mass shooting; some call it four deaths or more. Others say six or more. By at least one account, 14 mass shootings occurred during the Obama administration. After every one of those shootings, there were loud calls for further firearms regulations.

But whether attributable to Obama’s apathy, or gun owners’ tenacity, Obama left the laws on firearms largely as he found them. In some cases, he actually liberalized those laws.

Republicans were concerned that a Hillary Clinton presidency would create a political atmosphere inhospitable to the Second Amendment. This was not without some justification. Her husband, President Bill Clinton, passed a large package of gun control measures that lasted a decade until they were rescinded in 2004. Mr. Trump was seen as such a weak candidate that pundits and poll watchers thought not only that he would lose – badly – but that he would doom the down-ballot candidates. The result would be unified Democrat government control and at least one Supreme Court vacancy.

Anticipating the consequences of a Clinton victory, the NRA poured $36.3 million dollars into the 2016 election. A record-breaking amount for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. When Trump pulled off an improbable victory and the House and Senate remained in Republican hands, advocates of the Second Amendment assumed firearms were safe. Some even speculated that all gun control laws could be on the chopping block.

Not only was the firearms community expecting rifle shot approaches to firearms legislation, such as treating suppressors (i.e. silencers) as any other firearms accessory, but they hoped to fulfill other longstanding goals.

Some of the most offensive gun control laws they wanted to repeal included:

• The 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act made it illegal for any private citizen who is not an FFL/SOT, from owning a fully automatic weapon made after May 19, 1986.
• The Gun Control Act of 1968 created a complex, rigid, and expensive system of licensing requirements to sell firearms. It also created the nebulous “sporting purposes” standard for certain firearms.
• The 1934 National Firearms Act was the first really big federal push at gun control in the 20^th It imposed regulations and taxes on certain automatic weapons, suppressors, short barreled rifles, and shotguns.

The firearms community and defenders of the Constitution anticipated that the Republican government would chip away at these and many other gun laws. To their surprise, the opposite seems to have happened.

President Trump’s negotiating style is unpredictable and erratic. His supporters argue that he is shrewdly employing a multi-tiered offensive against the D.C. establishment. His detractors think his views are malleable and he will take the advice of either the loudest or last voice in the room.  The result for gun owners has been more talk about firearms freedom but nothing in the way of actual disentanglement of the network of laws that violate the Second Amendment.

In fact, there is the threat of even more invasive federal meddling with the right to keep and bear arms.

During a bipartisan meeting at the White House, members of Congress and the president discussed a new type of gun control called the Gun Confiscation Order. This law would allow a friend, family member, police officer, or attorneys general to petition a court to confiscate a person’s firearms on the premise that the individual might commit a violent action in the future.

Currently, six states allow for Gun Confiscation Orders and permit the petitioner and court to hold the hearing ex parte. This means that if a court agrees with the petitioner’s claims – alleging the potential for crimes that may occur in the future – the firearm owner receives no notice or opportunity to respond to the allegations at the initial court review.  The owner learns about the confiscation order when the police and SWAT team arrive at his house to execute the order.

The exact criteria for determining that a person might commit a crime in the future is never explicitly stated in any of the Gun Control Orders that are currently on the books at the state level. This, of course, is because doctors and psychiatrists have no way of definitely predicting future criminal behavior.

In addition to the inequitable application and secret hearings, these orders violate Supreme Court standards. The Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago found that firearms are a fundamental right. As a matter of constitutional law, the federal government cannot infringe upon that fundamental right by appealing to such a low standard as the Gun Confiscation Order.

And yet, when President Trump brought Republicans and Democrats to the White House to discuss firearms and the Second Amendment, he chose to discuss the viability of federal Gun Confiscation Orders; a mechanism to enact the very thing firearm advocates feared under a Clinton presidency.

Vice President Pence raised the potential of Gun Confiscation Orders at the national level with some tailoring to allow due process so “no one’s rights are trampled.”

President Trump responded, “Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court…. Because a lot of time … it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures, I like taking the guns early.”

That is a Rubicon.

President Trump said something that not even President Obama had the temerity to say. He shared his personal preference to leapfrog over the Constitution, due process, and even legislation.

In a short, off-the-cuff comment, Trump endorsed Gun Confiscation Orders without any constitutional due process.  Firearm owners and advocates cannot assume that their rights are safeguarded under the leadership of any political party.

P.A. Deacon
May 19, 2018 at 08:38AM

Liberals on Guns & DACA, Sports Gambling & the Constitution

KrisAnne enters into a discussion with Liberals about the Right to Keep & Bear Arms & DACA.  Then we get into the REAL conversation about what the supreme court said about Sports Gambling…NOT sanctuary cities. Alternatively you can listen to “The KrisAnne Hall Show” on YouTube

The post Liberals on Guns & DACA, Sports Gambling & the Constitution appeared first on KrisAnne Hall.

Read the full article at krisannehall.com May 19, 2018 at 07:16AM

Tenth Amendment Center: Bill Bradley, Call Your Bookie

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

In 1992, Congress passed a statute authored by then-Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, who was a former Princeton University and New York Knicks basketball superstar, prohibiting the states from authorizing sports betting. At that time, gambling in Atlantic City was flourishing, and notwithstanding one of its own senators’ efforts to keep gambling away from competitive sports, the state of New Jersey wanted to duplicate Las Vegas’ success with sports betting.

When Bradley’s legislation grandfathered the state of Nevada, legislators in New Jersey came up with an idea to get around the federal legislation that would permit Atlantic City casinos to compete with those in Las Vegas by repealing all laws about sports betting, thereby escaping the federal prohibition on “authorizing” sports betting. It would be up to the casinos to set up their own betting parlors for college and professional sports, and in so doing, they could increase their own bottom lines and thus the state’s tax revenues.

When major professional sports leagues and the NCAA challenged this, a federal district court in Newark read the ‘thou shalt not authorize’ language to mean ‘thou shalt not permit under any circumstances.’ That ruling was upheld by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia, and New Jersey appealed its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor earlier this week.

Get ready to call your bookie.

The Supreme Court decision reinforces the anti-commandeering jurisprudence of the 10th Amendment, which was dormant from the New Deal era to the mid-1990s. Recall that the states formed the federal government, not the other way around. When they did so, they delegated certain areas of governmental authority to the feds, and as new states were added to the Union, they did the same.

The 10th Amendment is the constitutional recognition of the truism that the legislative powers that the states did not delegate to Congress they retained for themselves.

The anti-commandeering jurisprudence prohibits Congress from telling the states how to govern or legislate or spend their tax dollars in any governmental areas not delegated to the Congress. This congressional practice was condemned in a case called Printz v. United States, in which Congress had ordered state law enforcement officials to establish certain gun registration protocols consistent with congressional standards and made state legislatures pay for the enforcement of the protocols.

The Supreme Court, through the late Justice Antonin Scalia, characterized this federal legislation as “commandeering” — taking the discretion away from — state officials and legislatures. The Supreme Court’s sports gambling decision this week followed the rationale of the Printz case and characterized the federal legislation that prohibited the states from permitting sports gambling as commandeering their legislative processes.

The reason that federal commandeering of state legislative processes is unconstitutional — Justice Samuel Alito’s sports betting opinion likened commandeering to having a federal agent on the floor of each state legislature give a thumbs-up or -down to proposed legislation — is that it flies in the face of the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution.

That clause guarantees a representative form of government in each state. A representative form of government requires that the representatives in the government be free to vote their consciences and not be prohibited or restrained from doing so because of a federal command.

Did Bill Bradley make a mistake?

I am a longtime fan and friend of Sen. Bradley’s, notwithstanding our general ideological differences over the constitutional role of government in our lives. Bradley is smart, fair and open-minded, and I miss him in the public forum. Yet he ought to have known that the legislation he authored was unconstitutional, and he ought to have known that Congress could have outlawed sports betting had it chosen to do so.

If Congress had outlawed sports betting, such a law would not have implicated the anti-commandeering jurisprudence because it would have been a restraint on individual personal behavior and not a restraint on the discretion of state law enforcement or elected state representatives.

What are the unintended consequences of this ruling?

All of this bodes well for the independence of the states in the areas where they are free to govern. There, they can be laboratories of democracy, dependent upon the public sentiment of their voters and the freely exercised consciences of their state representatives.

In an odd couplet, however, it also helps the sanctuary city movement, insofar as that movement purports to require that state and local law enforcement agencies not actively enforce federal immigration laws or policies because compelling them to do so would violate anti-commandeering jurisprudence. The commandeering would consist of removing the discretion of state and local law enforcement as to the disposition of law enforcement resources and the discretion of state legislatures as to how state tax revenue is spent.

And all of this underscores the wisdom of the Framers, who created a federal union that, even after the Civil War, is still subject to the sovereignty of the states. The beauty of the Union is that no two states are alike and we can all get ourselves to states where the laws are more to our liking. Ronald Reagan once whimsically captured these constitutional values when he argued that only in America can you vote with your feet.

Judge Andrew Napolitano
May 17, 2018 at 07:54AM

Tenth Amendment Center: Legal “Expert” Gets Supremacy Clause Wrong in Mainstream News Report

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

A recent mainstream media news report covered the Michigan 4th Amendment Protection Act. Unsurprisingly, while much of the article was factually correct, they included a statement from a former NSA lawyer who either lied about the Supremacy Clause – or just doesn’t know anything about it.

WATCH:

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TRANSCRIPT

Virtually every mainstream article that you read about state sovereignty or nullification is going to include a quote by a “legal scholar.” Now, nine times out of 10, this lawyer or law professor is going to cite the supremacy clause.

It’s like federal supremacists think the supremacy clause is some kind of jail free card. They slap it down and instantly any state action is invalidated.

The Washington Examiner recently ran a fantastic article headlined “On 5th anniversary of Snowden leak, one state effectively bans the NSA.”

The article featured a law recently passed in Michigan that bans all state support and cooperation with warrantless federal surveillance.

Low and behold – our legal expert makes an appearance – this time in the form of a Brookings Institute fellow who also happened to be a former NSA lawyer named Susan Hennessey. And yes, she predictably trotted out the supremacy clause, saying it could spell trouble for the Michigan law.

This is bovine scat.

The Supreme Court has consistently held since 1842 that the federal government cannot force a state to use its personnel or resources to enforce a federal law or implement a federal program.

In fact, this anti-commandeering doctrine was a key part of a recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned a federal sports betting law.

So no, the Michigan law does not have any supremacy clause issues. The federal government cannot force Michigan to cooperate with warrantless surveillance.

Hennessey is either a really bad lawyer, or she’s lying.

Mike Maharrey
May 17, 2018 at 07:20AM

Tenth Amendment Center: Rhode Island House Passes Right to Try Act to Reject Some FDA Restrictions on Terminal Patients

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (May 16, 2018) – Today, the Rhode Island House passed a bill would nullify in practice some Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules that deny access to experimental treatments by terminally ill patients.

Rep. Joseph McNamara (D-Warwick) introduced House Bill 7294 (H7294) in January along with four bipartisan co-sponsors. The legislation would allow terminally ill patients access to medicines and treatments not yet given final approval for use by the FDA.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prohibits general access to experimental drugs. However, under the expanded access provision of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. 360bbb, patients with serious or immediately life-threatening diseases may access experimental drugs after receiving express FDA approval.

HB7294 creates a process to bypass the FDA expanded access program and allows patients to obtain experimental drugs from manufacturers without first obtaining FDA approval. This procedure directly conflicts with the federal expanded access program and sets the stage to nullify it in practice.

The House Committee on Health Education and Welfare recommended H7294 for passage last week. Today, the full House passed the bill as well.

The bill is titled the “Neil Fachon Terminally Ill Patients’ Right To Try Act Of 2018.” Fachon was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a brain stem tumor that took his life in February 2017. He had to go to court to guarantee access to experimental medical treatments banned by the FDA.

“The one thing everyone tries to hold onto is hope — hope that the individual will get well, hope that some procedure will lead to a cure,” McNamara said. “I want Rhode Island to do all it can to give these people hope. I want Rhode Island to give terminally ill patients the ‘right to try’ anything that might help them. Access to experimental treatments will provide terminally-ill patients with the fundamental right to control the decisions relating to their own medical care.”

Forty states now have Right to Try laws on the books. Although these laws only address one small aspect of FDA regulation, they provide a clear model that demonstrates how to nullify federal statutes that violate the Constitution. The strategy narrows the influence of nullification to limited aspects of the law itself, which has proven to be very effective.

“Americans shouldn’t have to ask the government for permission to try to save their own lives,” said Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater Institute. “They should be able to work with their doctors directly to decide what potentially life-saving treatments they are willing to try. This is exactly what Right To Try does.”

The results show that the impact of Right to Try isn’t merely theoretical.

Since the Texas Right to Try law went into effect in June 2015, at least 78 patients in the Lone Star State have received an experimental cancer treatment not allowed by the FDA. While the FDA would have allowed these patients to die, Houston-based oncologist Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand continued their treatment through the Texas law. (Watch a video about Dr. Delpassand here.)

The Right to Try Act is a no-brainer. When someone is on their deathbed, the fact that FDA regulations would let them die rather than try has got to be one of the most inhumane policies of the federal government. Every state should take action to nullify the FDA like this.

WHAT’S NEXT

H7294 will now move to the Senate for further consideration.

Mike Maharrey
May 16, 2018 at 11:45PM