However, Senator Guarisco’s bill was never truly put into effect, as the Health Department reportedly never followed through on its duties in any significant manner. The bill also charged the Health Department with contracting with national groups for the production and distribution of the cannabis products.

One of the key aspects of this legislation was its creation of the Marijuana Prescription Review Board, whose members were to be appointed by the state Department of Health and Human Resources (Health Department) secretary. In 1978, former state senator Tony Guarisco sponsored a bill, which Governor Edwin Edwards later signed into law, legalizing medical marijuana for patients with glaucoma and for those undergoing chemotherapy. Shockingly, Louisiana was technically the first state in the country to legalize medical marijuana in the late 1970s.

Though medical THC products did not truly become available in Louisiana until around 2015, legislation seeking to legalize the product has been around in the state for much longer. The History of Louisiana’s Medical Marijuana Program Finally, this Piece will look ahead, examining and discussing further changes and progress to the state’s cannabis laws that may take effect in the future. Next, this Piece will outline and analyze the provisions of House Bill 391 and the changes it promulgated within the law. This historical section will begin by examining the strictly regulated and rigid early days of the program before discussing the more progressive policies that are in place today. To adequately articulate the progress that Louisiana has made with the enactment of House Bill 391 and other marijuana legislation, this Piece will first touch on the history of Louisiana’s Medical Marijuana Program. These changes not only have the benefit of pushing Louisiana towards adopting a more progressive marijuana policy as a whole, but they also make medical marijuana itself much more readily available to the numerous patients who truly need it. Prior to the enactment of this bill, only THC oils, edible gummies, and processed tinctures were available for patients in the program to purchase. Notably, Governor John Bel Edwards recently signed House Bill 391 into law, allowing, in part, for the Louisiana Medical Marijuana Program to provide raw, smokable cannabis to its patients with a doctor’s recommendation.

Though it has been a slow and incremental process, the proliferation of marijuana legislation in Louisiana evidences that the legislature is taking meaningful steps to formulate the most progressive drug-related policy the state has ever seen. Since 2015, however, the state has taken several steps to ensure that medical marijuana becomes available to people suffering from ailments that can be treated with THC products. Historically, when the media has discussed the question of marijuana legalization in the United States, Louisiana was not among the states that experts predicted would ever pass pro-cannabis legislation.

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