Virginia senate passed health care bill SB 726 in an unanimous decision of 40-0, which will allow Virginia state doctors to prescribe cannabis for any diagnosed condition or disease.

“I finally decided that I needed to advocate for the physicians being the decision makers,” Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, the chief patron of the Senate bill, told the News Leader. “We, physicians, are the ones that follow the literature and know which treatments are best for different conditions. The literature on medical cannabis is going to be evolving rapidly now, and because of this, it is not a decision that should be in the hands of the legislature. Instead, it should be with physicians.”

Dunnavant went on to discuss his appreciation for those diagnosed with medical conditions – like cancer, Crohn’s disease, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, among several others – who testified on behalf of the bill.

“Honestly, until this week, I’ve always thought of it helping my patients that have breast cancer, especially the young ones that have children and have so many things to get done but feel so terrible as they go through chemotherapy,” Senator Dunnavant, a doctor, told the News Leader. “After this week, I won’t be able to forget Tamra Netzel, the patient and my constituent with multiple sclerosis that testified on behalf of this bill in committee. My niece also has MS and having the opportunity to help others in similar situations means a lot to me.”

Nikki Narduzzi, an advocate for medical cannabis in Virginia, approached Delegate Benjamin L. Cline to patron a “Let Doctors Decide” house bill that would allow patients diagnosed with all medical conditions access to medicated cannabis, not just epilepsy patients.

“I met with Delegate Cline mid-December at the Starbucks in Staunton to present him with the hard ask… ‘Would he patron a Let Doctors Decide bill that would allow all patients to access the same medical marijuana products that were available to epilepsy patients?’ He was happy to agree and ‘my fight’ instantly got easier. I could never put into words just how meaningful his patronage and support was, especially at at time when I had very little (physically and emotionally) to give. I had burned my patient advocacy candle at both ends and was just barely hanging in there,” Narduzzi told the News Leader.

From this point, both bills will go to the opposite house for a vote before they reach Governor Ralph Northam’s desk for approval.

Victory for cannabis advocates and medical cannabis patients seems close for Virginians, considering Governor Northam, also a doctor, has already been on record in support of the Let Doctors Decide bill.