Four bills regarding medical cannabis discucssed at the Capitol
By Arthur Jones 
, Multimedia Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media News
March 3, 2025, 6:28 p.m. ·
Four bills aimed at regulating medical cannabis were discussed in front of a packed hearing room during the Unicameral’s General Affairs committee Monday.
All four bills outline specific regulation guidelines for buying, selling, prescribing and growing medical marijuana in Nebraska.
Medical marijuana was approved by voters in November through the ballot initiative process. The initiatives were challenged last October in county court and are now awaiting a hearing in front of Nebraska's Supreme Court.
Before the hearings began, the group that spearheaded last year’s ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana held a press conference in the capitol rotunda.
Executive director for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana Crista Eggers said the group will continue, despite challenges presented by Attorney General Mike Hilgers' October 2024 lawsuit and op-ed published this past weekend.
“We are going to stay focused on our mission," Eggers said. "Which is to make sure that we see this implemented in a way, that the patients in this state, patients behind me, the caregivers behind me, that they get the access that they need and they deserve.”
Two of the bills, introduced by Senator Danielle Conrad and Senator Ben Hansen, look to help establish a stronger regulatory commission that will be certifying businesses to sell cannabis later this year.
The hearing began with a conversation about the joint bills submitted by Conrad and Hansen. Michael Johnson, the CEO of a Colorado cannabis company who lives in Nebraska, was a proponent of the two bills, and said regulation is key for Nebraska's new industry.
“When we talk about a discrete and limited marketplace, this industry needs to integrate into our community," Johnson said. "We don't need facilities on every corner, and both of these bills address that issue. And we need to balance supply and demand where we can provide economic opportunity for entrepreneurs, so we can prevent over saturation that leads to an unstable market.”
Other proponents said their reasoning for supporting the bills was because they believed that medical cannabis would replace more harmful opioids.
Zachary Pohlman, the Acting Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Nebraska, speaking on behalf of the Attorney General's Office, said cannabis being illegal on the federal level will cause issues locally.
“This office has long held that any attempt to license entities to dispense marijuana in Nebraska violates the federal ban," Pohlman said. "If the medical cannabis commission tries to do so, the Attorney General's Office will challenge that action as preempted and unenforceable.”
Another reason he expressed for opposing the two bills is that he believes the law should be left alone and not changed from what Nebraskans voted on. He also fears that legalizing medical marijuana could lead to recreational marijuana, something that both the proponents and the bill introducers refuted.
The other bills heard Monday are a bill introduced by Senator Jared Storm, that restricts legal cannabis to just pills and liquid forms, and a bill, introduced by Senator Terrel McKinney and Senator Ashlei Spivey, that explores methods for reducing sentences for marijuana related crimes.
More on the debate over medical marijuana in Nebraska:
Verdict of medical cannabis trial may affect those with criminal convictions
Nebraskans voted along long-held political divides, county analysis shows