S.B. 83 Controlled Substance Scheduling Amendments: transcript

controlled Substance Scheduling Amendment. Senator Vickers. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chair. Um, this one, we are trying to get out in front of any action taken by the federal government. We have a number of situations where, um, products come forward and they're scheduled. And if you, if you remember, um, Epidiolex, Epidiolex was A-A-C-B-D product that at time was, uh, scheduled as Schedule one. It went through the FDA process. It went through the FDA approval process and became a drug. And it was, it was put into schedule and, and it was scheduled as a controlled substance. Uh, oftentimes we have taken looks at different PR me medications within the state of Utah. In fact, representing Paul Ray when he was in the, still in the legislature, uh, set up a controlled Substance advisory council that gives recommendations to the legislature as far as scheduling. We can be more stringent in the state. We can't be less. And so, for example, um, two examples are Issa Al, or the brand name was Soma. And then it was not a scheduled medication at the time. We, we, we recommended through that Advisory council to schedule it as a Schedule five, which we did. Gabapentin was the same way. It was not scheduled. We, so we got out in front of them before the, and later on, the federal government actually changed the schedule and decided to schedule those, those were products that were already, uh, they were already been approved by the FDA and they were already being used in, within the public. We just felt like that they were, uh, more dangerous, more harmful than they were deemed at the time. And so we scheduled them higher. And then the federal government followed suit later. This one is trying to preempt so that if there are products that are schedule one products and the f and the federal government through the F-D-A-D-E-A determined to schedule it in a, as a controlled substance, but with a different classification, then we're just saying, okay, we'll start, we'll start where the federal, federal government starts. So if they take a product and, I don't know, pick one, I don't know, it could be a cannabis program product or something else. But if it comes forward and it is scheduled as, let's say it's schedule three. If it's put as schedule three, we would, we would just say this Bill simply just says that's where we'd start. And as a state, we would schedule it as a Schedule three. The, we do, although have the ability to put the, put that medication through the Controlled Substance Advisory Council, and they could recommend that it either go to a two or even a one, I guess back to a one. Um, and, and I know this is counterintuitive because you think that it's gonna be a higher, when you say a higher class, well, in nomenclature with controlled substances, one is deemed to have no medicinal value. Two is, is like oxycodone, those kind of things. Then three, four, and five, five is down to some of your cough syrups and loma till and those types of things. So when you're thinking about this, when you think higher classification, think lower number, the lower the number, the more stringent. So if, for example, it was placed as if, if a product came out and the federal government, uh, scheduled it as a controlled substance schedule three, that's where we would start. But we would have the ability through our, through the process that we have set up here in the state and has been very effective and it's very useful, we could recommend that on a state level, it be scheduled as a schedule two or even back to a one if you wanted. So anyway, that's, that's where this bill goes. Okay. Thank you.

Senator Grover. My name's, uh, Walter Plum. I'm the president of, uh, I'm, I'm president of Drug Safe, Utah. And we oppose, uh, this change the word, the, the key wording of this change was actually in the last part of the bill. It said, if the federal government schedules the pharmaceutical composition of a Schedule one controlled substance or the pharmaceutical composition of any form of a schedule one controlled substance in a schedule that is not schedule one, that composition is deemed scheduled under this section, blah, blah, in the same composition as the, uh, federal statutes. This language is too broad. Senator Cullimore has another bill in this that's already been posted. It's Senate Bill one 14, and that's on psilocybin. And he asked for the very same thing. If psilocybin is scheduled from one to three or some other schedule, it will automatically take place in Utah. Sort of like the abortion legislation that took place, uh, when Roe v Wade fell. Now, the problem with sil decitabine, the reason why we closed that bill is that in all the testing, and it's in phase three trials with three different companies in every instance, there was someone there, someone that, uh, a doctor, a nurse, a someone when it was administered to make sure they didn't in the vernacular today, that they didn't have a bad trip. So we, this language is too broad in that, um, it would make, um, Senator, bill, Senator, uh, Moore's be just irrelevant. And would, would, um, another example would be ketamine. Ketamine is a Schedule three drug federally in Utah. Legislation was passed to make it a Schedule one drug. And this legis this language is broad enough to reschedule that back to three. Even though it's been scheduled, one, it's way too broad. So with that, we oppose strongly oppose Senate bill 83 controlled substance automatic. I call it automatically rescheduling. Thank you.

Did, Hi, my name is Danny Bordeaux. I'm the Executive Vice President of the Utah Eagle Forum, and we oppose this bill. Uh, it is much easier to loosen restrictions on a dangerous substance than it is to get it rescheduled. And so to automatically say that anything that the federal government does to lower a schedule, that we are just going to automatically go along with that, that is basically taken off all of the guardrails and all of the safeguards. And so we propo, we greatly oppose this bill and we suggest that it's, uh, not good public policy to just automatically remove all safeguards.

Mr. Chair, I would Like to move that we, uh, forward this bill, uh, to the full body of the Senate favorably recommended, please.

Actually one 20 one's different. Bill, like I said, like I said, I, let me just clear. 83. SB 83, I'd have To check when Senator Vickers is on Senate Bill eight that I

Senator Plumb? Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move that we favorably recommend SB 83 forward to the full body of the Senate.

Yeah, thanks. You and it, it may be in the light of some of the testimony just to clarify. Um, and, and I I'm gonna have to do some clarification and maybe even Senator Plumb can tell me, but Ketamine is actually allowed to be used in the state of Utah. It's used as an off label medication. And so I questioned that schedule one that, you know, one of the, that the public testified, and we can check on that, that way we can do some double checking on that. Um, but the fact of the matter is, uh, so for example, you know, the item that he used that would saying if, if ketamine was, uh, reclassified in the state of Utah as Schedule one, this bill would not move it back to a three. No. 'cause we'd already taken action, we'd actually already taken state action. All was saying is that if a product come forward that as it starts out, you know, in, in the state, then it would be whatever the schedule is. Also, just because a medication is moved to a, a new schedule, uh, from a one to a three. So take, I know there's a lot of talk about having cannabis moved to a schedule Three people come to me and say, well, that means that we can get it in pharmacies. Well, no, that's not the case. The only products that can be sold in pharmacies are can FDA approved products. And so this would have to go through the FDA approval process. So this rescheduling it doesn't automatically make it available to the public. Um, so those are some things I just wanted to caution you about as you think through the process of what this bill is actually doing. It is, you know, that's what we're trying to do is just be consistent to start with, with the federal government. But as I explained earlier in the presentation, we do have a mechanism in place to do a higher scrutiny and have the ability to move it to a, to a higher schedule, meaning a more stringent schedule. So, uh,

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

controlled sub scheduling amendments. I, in my mind, I think, I feel like this is a more of a common sense approach. We do from time to time, not very often, but once in a while, you'll have an item that is a Schedule one medication, a schedule one medication, that means it's deemed to have no medicinal value, and it's not, you know, legal that, uh, you'll find research being done in particular areas. And there are re there is research being done in certain, uh, controlled substance schedule one items. And, and then from time to time, then they'll be rescheduled. Um, in our state, we, we've put in place a couple of things that help us, but it seems common sense to me that if the federal government moves something from a one to a different schedule, that we would have it come into the state at the same schedule. Now, we have in place a number of years ago representing Ray Paul, Ray, when he was in legislature, put together a controlled substance advisory council to have us look at different, you know, classifications of controlled substances and make recommendations to the legislature. We've done that. We, we were in front of the, the federal government on, uh, Soma or Issa Ol, we were in front of the gov, the, the federal government on Gabapentin. We've scheduled those, these things on, on this particular bill. It is, it is basically not targeting anything. It's just setting up a process so that if, if that happened, that we would, we would move it to the same class. I had questions come up about cannabis 'cause there's been things in the news about cannabis possibly going to a Schedule three. So I did some research and my research, this is what I found in my research. And, and I think you have, you have a law enforcement expert here on the panel that may even know more than I do. But my, uh, my understanding and as the research that I've done is if that were to happen, if cannabis was moved to a three, it would not change anything as far as the legality in the state because our, because we do have a medical cannabis program, and we specifically said within that medical cannabis program, what is legal and what's not. And so our current, uh, laws regarding law enforcement would stay in place until we moved the legislation to change those. So, like I say, that was a question that came up and just came up in the last, you know, couple of weeks. And so I did wanna respond to that in case maybe you've received any inquiries about that. And I would certainly, um, you know, lend some time to my good colleague on your, your bench if he knows more than I do about it. So, uh, but with that in mind, that that's simply what it is. Like I say, it's not targeting any particular product, we're just trying to set up a process that seems to make sense as things might come forward. So,

Yeah. Specifically if something's in a controlled substance one.

You know, then, then we would bring it in at the same schedule and then we would start dealing with it. We, we would have the ability through the Controlled Substance Advisory Council to make other recommendations. You know, and you can always be more strict than the federal government. You can't be less strict, but you can be more strict. Okay.

Okay. That last sentence might have answered my question. 'cause my concern about Yeah, if the federal government lowers the standard or what for marijuana, are we forced to just treat it like any normal, like tobacco or something here or, so we can be more strict, but it would still be classified as that Schedule C or schedule three?

Go ahead Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Carl Holland. I'm the Executive Director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors. Uh, I reached out to the good sponsor on this. Uh, prosecutors don't have any issue with automatic rescheduling. We are actually very concerned about an unintended second order effect. And that is that under our current law, um, on how we categorize restricted persons 76 11, there are two ways that we can restrict someone from possessing a firearm. One is under subsection five if the person is an unlawful user of a controlled substance, and that could be schedules one through four. If they're using the substance when they possess the firearm, they're a restricted person, and we can prosecute them for that crime Under subsection six of 76, 11 3 0 3, we can prosecute a person if they're in possession of a dangerous weapon and knowingly, or intentionally being in unlawful possession of a Schedule one or Schedule two controlled substance. And so the concern here is that when you look at how marijuana dealers operate, they are some of our most violent drug dealers that we deal with in our society today. Uh, a lot of that is because the marijuana, uh, dealers are not regulated by cartels. And so a lot of them are a lot more violent actually, than a lot of cartel members. For a lot of reasons we're concerned that if the federal government were to reschedule marijuana to schedule three, what that would do is it would automatically reschedule in our state. And we could not prosecute a marijuana dealer for possessing a gun unless we could prove at the time he was holding the gun, he was using marijuana. And that can be very difficult for us to do for a lot of reasons. Uh, I did reach out to a good senator. It's very busy, very busy time of session. We think that there are some simple fixes. Would love to be part of that solution, but that's the concern from the prosecutor's standpoint, is that unintended second order effect. Um, but we have no, uh, objections to the policy behind automatic rescheduling. Thank you. Change

Yeah, that'd be great. By chanced. Uh, I appreciate Mr. Holland coming forward. And, uh, just to sidebar, we had, uh, I think it sounds like it'd be fairly simple to fix that in an amendment, or if it had to be a sub on the, you know, if it went forward out of the committee. Okay. Good to know. All right. Thank you. All right.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to make a motion to pass out favorably Senate bill 83. 83. Thank you.

Um, no, I'm just, I Well, yeah, I guess, yes, Senator, thank you for always taking on these issues and making sure that, uh, we're trying, we're doing our best to simplify this process because this really is whack-a-mole. And I think this is a, a great guideline to, um, to just make the process simpler and more straightforward going forward as our statute is more responsive to these changes.

No, I appreciate your consideration and, uh, the good questions too, and, and public comment as well. And, uh, like I say, I think, uh, uh, my, between myself and the house sponsor, I think we can work this out before it gets to the floor.

and products that are considered Schedule one and the FDA and DEA will put us in a new schedule on them moving in them to a, a different schedule off of Schedule one. Uh, this bill is more of a common sense approach to, from the state perspective, in that we would say that if, if a move, if a product was moved to a different schedule than Schedule one, that the state would start out wherever the FFDA and the DEA scheduled that we also have in place, uh, controlled substance advisory committee that reviews these changes from time to time and makes recommendations to the legislature. They can make recommendations that are more strict than the federal government. They can't make recommendations that are less so. We would have a process in place if that was to occur where we could make a move, uh, make a move to a more strict situation. But anyway, this is just, the bill simply just says that we would start out with a new, a new scheduling, uh, wherever the federal government decided to put it if they brought something off of a Schedule one product. With that, I'm open for questions.

I wait. Summation, move the Senate Bill 83 pass.

Senator Vickers. Baldy Aye. Lewin Bremmer Aye. Bus? Aye. Colmore. Esia. Aye. Fillmore a. Grover a Harper. Kinins Aye. Ipson Aye. Johnson. Aye. K. Juab McKay A. Mikel Aye. Milner Musselman Owens Aye. Pitcher Plum rebi. Aye. Sandal Stevenson. Blue And aye. Here Stratton Aye. Vickers. Weiler Wilson. Aye. Want Winterton Vickers? Aye. Vickers. Aye.

Your next Bill, wonder how many Weiler? I wonder how many times the initiative has been changed. President Adams, I, mayor, medical Mayor, you may want to comment.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I'd like to move amendment one in my name.

Yeah, just briefly. So the intent of this bill originally was to only deal with FDA approved products. This amendment just clarifies that a little bit further. Um, just that we're only dealing with FDA classified products.

Waive. Okay.

Yes. Thank you Mr. Speaker. This call exists as a common sense Bill from time to time. There is a product that is currently, um, is a Schedule one controlled substance, which is deemed to have no, um, medicinal value. It'll have research done on that medication that leads to an FDA approved product. SB 83 would simply say that when a product like this is put in a controlled substance class by the DEA or the FDA Utah would simply consider it an or originally in the same controlled substance class. The bill would only deal with an FDA approved product. Thus something like cannabis in general that would, could be rescheduled, would not be affected by this bill. The proposed house amendment fixes that and I'll conclude my presentation.

I'll waive summation that has been waived.

Thank you Mr. President Pro tem. Yeah. We made a minor clarification in the definition of, uh, a product that would be, could potentially be coming off a Schedule one substance and being rescheduled, clarifying that that would have to be an FDA approved product, which is what the intent was all along. So, you know, do I a motion to concur.