The Leading Question: Senator Daylin Leach

TRANSCRIPTION

Steve: On April 17th, Governor Tom Wolf signed into law the Marijuana Act, the Medicinal Marijuana Act. In so doing, Pennsylvania joined 23 other states that decriminalized medical marijuana. Now, the law raises as many questions as it answers. Will medical marijuana truly help children who are suffering from devastating neurologic diseases, who suffer convulsions and seizures on a daily basis? Will it help veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? Will it help injured workers who suffer from chronic pain syndromes? Or will the law serve, as some critics have suggested, as an easy pathway for savvy individuals to obtain recreational marijuana?

In order to answer these questions and more, we have with us today Senator Daylin Leach, Senator from the 17th Senatorial District here in Pennsylvania. Senator Leach was one of the major sponsors of Senate Bill 3, the Medical Marijuana Act, and he is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the Commonwealth about the topic. In addition, he is articulate, outspoken, and he has a terrific sense of humor. I want to welcome Senator Leach.

Sen. Leach: Well, it’s good to be with you, Steve. Thank you for that puffy introduction. And hopefully, I’ll be able to provide a little enlightenment without too much mortification as we discuss this topic today.

Steve: All right. That would be good. A lot of people do not know who their elected official is. If you asked the majority of people, I doubt they’d be able to identify, perhaps not in your district, who their state senator is. So, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and perhaps how you got into politics?

Sen. Leach: Sure. I actually was born in Philadelphia, and I had sort of an unusual journey through childhood. My mother and father were married, but they got divorced before I was born, and I never met my father. He left, and at that time, it was pretty easy to do that. So, I, to this day, never met him or encountered him in any way or his entire side of the family.

So, my mother was essentially a single mother, and she was, you know, in very difficult economic circumstances. Her mother lived with us. Her mother eventually got sick. She got a neurological disease, and there was no program to take care of her. So, my mother had to quit her job. And my mother was a commercial artist. She had to quit her job and take care of my grandmother. So, there was no income coming in. We were essentially on public assistance or what they called welfare…AFDC, technically, at the time, Aid for Families with Dependent Children. And there was…we did that for a while, and then it just became untenable financially in terms of her sort of burden. And so, she put me in a series of foster homes for a while, and I actually went to a bunch of different…I was in a different foster home, you know, every five or six months for a while. And I wound up going to eight elementary schools. So, I was, you know…

You know, all of this sort of, you know… First of all, when you’re a kid, this is…nothing’s unusual when you’re a kid. Things happen. That’s just the way things happen. So, I sort of rolled with the punches pretty well, and it taught me some things. But I will tell you that what enabled us finally to get on our feet was the fact that, you know, the government, frankly, intervened in our lives in a lot of ways, provided me with an education, provided me with, you know, nutrition, provided me with, you know, other things that helped us to sort of get on our feet and move forward. And that gave me a perspective that, you know, the government can do a lot of good in our lives. And so, I wanted to sort of make sure others had those opportunities. So, I was drawn to politics at a very young age. I remember at the age of seven, staying up all night watching the Nixon-Humphrey election returns. You’re too young to remember that, Steve, but…

Steve: I don’t think so.

Sen. Leach: But it was a very close election, and I was, I’m sure, the only second grader to stay up all night watching that. And ever since then, I’ve just been very, very involved in government, politics, policy, but also, you know, the horse race aspect of politics and the behind the scenes aspect. I was always very fascinated by it. And I wanted to get involved in that for a living. However, I knew that I had to find a way to earn a paycheck until someone would pay me to make laws.

So, I went to law school, and I practiced…I graduated, went to University of Houston in Texas. But I came back here to practice. Practiced for 17 years, opened up my own firm, and you know, it was going very well. Yeah, I had to work very hard to support that whole infrastructure that I created. But I became pretty good at what I did. And I, you know, practiced for 17 years until there was an opportunity to run for an unexpectedly vacant State House seat. It was Connie Williams’ old seat, and she had unexpectedly been elected to the Senate. And so, there’s a special election. And a lot of people don’t know, but in a special election, you don’t just decide to run and there’s a primary if you win the primary. No, the party picks someone in a special election.

So, I’d only lived in the district for three years. You know, you could say I was a carpetbagger almost. And so, it was very unlikely that I would get picked. I assumed there was someone whose turn it was, you know. But there was an interview process. And people said…a couple of people I know said, you know, go to the interview process. At least you’ll meet some people. You may impress a couple people. Maybe it pays off in the future, get some experience doing this sort of thing.

So, I did that, and the interview went really well. I came home, and I told my wife, you know, it went well. I’m glad I did it. The next day, I got a call from a woman named Nora Winkelman who said, well, we’ve decided to pick you. And I almost ran off the road, you know. Because I knew it was a very competitive seat at the time, and the control of the House was kind of at stake. So, I knew that there was going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars spent telling the world just what a horrible human being I was. It’s a little daunting when you start thinking about it.

Steve: Absolutely.

Sen. Leach: And as bad as I thought it was, it was far worse in reality, far worse. It was just literally unbelievable. But anyway, at the end of that process, we prevailed, served in the House for three terms. 2008, Connie moved on from the Senate. And so, I ran for that seat and was successful. So, I’ve been in the Senate since 2008. And you know, we’ve tried to accomplish a number of things. We’ve been lucky and been able to get a couple of very important things done, the most recent of which was what you just described, the Medical Marijuana Bill.

When I first introduced that bill, I couldn’t get a co-sponsor. People would come up to me, other legislators would come up to me, and they’d say, you know, Daylin, you’re…bless your heart, you’re just crazy. But look, if it were up to me, your bill would pass. I think it’s really important. Obviously, I can’t vote for it. And I will have to issue a press release condemning you for introducing it. But I want you to know that, deep down, I’m with you. And I was like, that’s very comforting. Anyway, I’m sorry.

Steve: But you’ve been involved as a sponsor of other important legislation as well, not just medical marijuana.

Sen. Leach: Oh, yeah. We’ve had a number of very important accomplishments. Bills I passed, there’s the prohibition on shackling of pregnant prisoners, bringing hybrid cars to the state fleet, changing the corporate code to create something called B Corp, which is a type of corporate entity that allows corporations to do public good. And I was very instrumental in the same-sex marriage fight. That was my bill, first time in history we introduced a bill like that. Ultimately, that became the law as well.

You know, part of also what you do as a legislator, you try to pass good laws. You also try to stop bad laws. And I think I’ve been very involved in trying to do that, too. Sometimes in the legislature…sometimes the legislature does things which I believe are unconstitutional, and I’ve actually sued on a number of occasions and prevailed. I sued and had the voter ID law struck down. And most recently, I sued and had Act 192, which was the law that says the National Rifle Association can sue any municipality that passes any ordinance whatsoever dealing with guns. Not an unconstitutional ordinance. There’s already a law that prohibits that. But even constitutional ordinances. And, you know, that was just, like…I mean, it was the only law like it in the country.

So, we sued, won 7-0 in the Commonwealth Court. It’s currently on appeal before the Supreme Court, but I feel very confident we’re going to win there as well. So, I feel good about some of the things we’ve been able to accomplish. I think they make a real difference in people’s lives.

Steve: Senator, Pennsylvania has traditionally been regarded as a conservative state. How on Earth did you ever think that medical marijuana would pass here? And how did you get involved in the cause?

Sen. Leach: Well, I got involved in the cause… I mean, you know, if you had asked me years ago, I always would have supported it. It always seemed to me obvious that people should get medicine that they need when they’re sick. I never understood why that was a problem. But it wasn’t a front burner issue for me. And then a fellow senator, who didn’t want to get involved, but said that they had a constituent — not my constituent, one of theirs — who had a son that had a form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, which is a horrible form of chronic epilepsy. This boy was seizing, you know, 100 times a day, you know, cognitively and physically not developing because they’re just seizing all the time. It’s terrible. And often, these children die in their early teen years.

So, I met this woman, the mother of this child. Her name was Christine [SP]. And we started talking about it. And then I went and did some research. And I found out that there was some molecular biologists and doctors had come up with a strain of medicine, which had had miraculous results with these kids with no side effects, whereas some of the drugs we give them don’t work very well, have horrible side effects. And I’m like, my God, if it was my kid, you know, I’d kill someone. You’d have to kill me to stop me from getting that medicine for my kid. And it made me just so angry that, in Pennsylvania, a parent who gave their kid this medicine to help them risked not only criminal prosecution, they risked imprisonment, they risked losing their child because they’re giving their child drugs, you know.

So, I said, this is a horrible, amoral, unjust law that we have. And we have to change it. And I said, I’m going to spend the next couple of years of my life doing that. And then, of course, as you mentioned, when I said that, I’m like, well, wait a minute, we’re not in the most progressive state. So, how are we going to do this?

So, the first strategy I hit on was I’ve got to make this a bipartisan bill. If it’s just Daylin, a Liberal Democrat, you know, people are going to say it’s just, you know, one of Daylin’s ideas. You know, I’ll have no credibility on the Republican side of the aisle, and they control the House and the Senate. So, nothing’s going to happen if I don’t have any credibility on this issue. So, I said, I’ve got to get a Republican. It was very difficult.

First, I went to what the Republicans in their own caucus call RINOs, the Southeastern Republicans, the more moderate Republicans. But I had no luck. And I was really sort of in despair about what to do. And then one day on the floor, Mike Folmer, who’s a very…not a RINO, very Conservative Republican, hardcore from…

Steve: Lebanon or Dauphin County.

Sen. Leach: Lebanon County, Lilitz [SP], I think. Anyway, he came to me on the floor and he said, you know, I really support that Medical Marijuana Bill. And I’m like, yeah, I know, but you can’t vote for it. I understand. He goes, no, no, I’d be willing to say publicly that I support it. I was like, really? Now, we’re onto something. So, he became a real champion of the bill. And I’m not speaking out of school here because he’s public about this. I think part of it is he’s a cancer sufferer. He has lymphoma. And he has to deal with a lot of these issues. And cancer is one of the main things that medical marijuana can be helpful with. So, not just the disease itself, but also tolerating chemotherapy, appetite stimulation so you don’t waste away, pain management, all that sort of thing.

So, we, you know, learned everything we could about this issue. And then we started going to our colleagues, both of us together, and meeting with them sometimes for hours at a time. And often we’d go into a meeting, and they’d be like, you know, come on, marijuana. And by the end of the meeting, often we’d have a convert.

Steve: But was there a feeling that there really wasn’t a distinction between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana?

Sen. Leach: Yeah. And it’s not only that. Because, I mean, again, if this was a derivative of not the marijuana plant, but an orchid or a cactus, it’d be in every CVS in the country. Marijuana has gotten this stigma because of culture wars and things like that, that really have nothing to do with medicine. I mean, I can give you some of the history of why marijuana is illegal. It has nothing to do with health or anything like that. It has to do with economic interest and, you know…

Frankly, the reason marijuana is illegal at all is because there’s a product called hemp, which is part of the same family, but it doesn’t intoxicate you. And hemp is very good at making paper, which undermine the investments in wood pulp from people like William Randolph Hearst and the du Ponts. And so, they hired a guy from Pennsylvania named Harry Anslinger to demonize…at the time, it was called cannabis, but he started calling it marijuana because it was scarier to White people. You know, it was what Mexicans called it.

So, anyway, and they used the fact that it was an intoxicant opportunistically to get it banned. I mean, hemp is illegal in…up until…I mean, we’re changing that now. But up until recently, hemp was illegal in Pennsylvania. You don’t get high on hemp. I mean, that’s how irrational the policy is.

Steve: But let’s be a little more specific about that. So, there are different strains of marijuana, and they contain varying amounts of the intoxicating ingredient known as THC, tetrahydrocannabinol. Now, some strains of marijuana, as I understand it, contain very low amounts of THC, but contain a substance known as CBD. Do I have that right?

Sen. Leach: Yeah. There are many compounds in the cannabis family of plants, and there’s different… Hemp is one branch, and there’s cannabis sativa and cannabis indica, and there’s all kinds of different strains. And then there’s…you know, with the way we can engineer now, we can be really specific.

But the main compounds are the tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the intoxicant. There’s also CBDs, which is a cannabidiol, which is non-intoxicating, but also has amazing properties. Now, one of the things that people ask is, well, why is marijuana so effective on so many different types of illnesses? And that’s because our body has an entire system called the endocannabinoid system, which is receptors, which only one plant in the world, or only one family of plants in the world links onto, and that’s cannabis.

And, you know, one of the great things about the endocannabinoid system is cannabis receptors are all over your body, which is why it can, in different forms, help you in different ways. But there are none in your medulla. Why is that important? Because the way that most drugs that you can overdose on kill you is because they suppress your breathing. Okay? But since there are no cannabis…endocannabinoid receptors in your medulla, not to be overly technical, you can ingest marijuana for days. You can swim in it, you know, and you’re never going to overdose. That’s why there are zero marijuana deaths a year, because it doesn’t suppress your breathing, because it just…there’s no receptors in that part of your body. So you just never stop breathing.

And it’s important for people to know, different strains do different things. So, for example, kids with epilepsy, they respond best to a high CBD, low THC mix, which is not intoxicating. It’s not smoked as an oil under the tongue. Now, if you’re a cancer patient, you can’t… In order for, for example, appetite stimulation, that’s THC. So, you need a higher THC thing. If you have post-traumatic stress disorder as a veteran, that’s also something that’s best…the most effective thing is smoking it, and it’s a higher THC. You know, some of the topicals don’t have any THC at all. So, you know, there’s all kinds of things and for different conditions.

Steve: So, that was something I’m sure that you let other senators and legislators know about, that not all marijuana intoxicates people.

Sen. Leach: Well, even the type that does intoxicate people… I mean, for example, one of the things, you know, people use the intoxicating form of medical marijuana for is pain relief. But if you use, you know, what we traditionally give people for pain relief, the opioids…I don’t know if you ever used Percocet or OxyContin, you want to get intoxicated, that’ll intoxicate you. I mean, that’s… Marijuana’s nothing compared to that stuff. That stuff makes you like a zombie.

Steve: Plus opioids are highly addictive.

Sen. Leach: Highly addictive. States with medical marijuana protocols, by the way, have a 25% lower rate of opioid overdoses. We just most recently saw a prince die of an opioid overdose.

Steve: And unfortunately, the first line treatment for many pain management specialists, for people who suffer from chronic pain, is the Percocets, and the Vicodin, and then ultimately the OxyContins. And I think it’s important that our viewers understand that 80% of heroin addicts start by using other opioids like OxyContin, like Vicodin, like Percocet.

Sen. Leach: And the reason that is, is because they give you a prescription and you get addicted. You can’t sleep, you can’t get rid of the pain unless you take your Percocet every four hours or whatever it is. And then, eventually, your prescription runs out. And you get desperate. So, you go to the street, and you get what you can get on the street. And that’s things like heroin and so forth.

Steve: Right. Heroin is cheaper actually than Percocets.

Sen. Leach: Right. So, that is why, you know… And, you know, it’s funny because one of the arguments… The arguments against this were so stupid, I must tell you. But one of the arguments…

Steve: Not convincing.

Sen. Leach: One of the arguments that was least convincing was, this is a gateway drug. Now, I will tell you, you can make that argument in the context of recreational marijuana. I think you’d be wrong, but you can make the argument. At least there’s a logic to it. But there’s no logic in the context of medical marijuana. Because what they’re saying is, we are afraid that if we give you medical marijuana, it’s going to be a gateway to you trying OxyContin. So, instead, we’re just going to prescribe OxyContin. Okay. We’re just going to skip the gateway and go right to the, you know, to the heavy drug.

Steve: Where there is no argument. It is a clear pathway to…

Sen. Leach: To addiction and…

Steve: …addiction…

Sen. Leach: …overdose…

Steve: …and heroin and what have you.

Sen. Leach: Yeah. So, why would we do that? It is literally an insane argument. It used to make my head explode. So, anyway, we overcame all of that. We got law enforcement. There’s a law enforcement group involved. We got, you know, people all across the political spectrum. Finally, when we passed this in the Senate, it passed 43 to 7, which is like, you know, we don’t name bridges 43 to 7 in the Pennsylvania legislature. I mean, that’s a huge bipartisan majority that you never see on an issue like that. Ultimately, it took a long time because there was a couple people trying to stop it. But it passed 149 to 43 in the House.

The next stage is the regulatory stage. Because once you pass a bill…a bill is this thick, the regulations are this thick, you know. And so, we have to go through… So, I’m very involved in that process. The Department of Health is ultimately the people responsible for that. But I’ve organized a conference on July 8th at St. Joseph’s University. People from all over the country are coming from other states that have done this. And talked about… We’re going to talk about in granular detail every aspect of the regulations, come up with recommendations for best practices, recommend them to the Department of Health, who is going to be on board. They’re going to be at the conference.

Steve: Is it open to the public?

Sen. Leach: Well, no. It’s a free conference, but we only have limited space. We have seating for 300. So, people can email me if they’re interested in coming. And we’re going to have a process to try to get the 300 people we think would be most knowledgeable and helpful in getting this done.

Steve: Senator, in reviewing the Medical Marijuana Act, I note that, in order to receive medical marijuana, you need to have 1 of 18 qualified medical conditions. Where did the concept of listing these conditions come from?

Sen. Leach: Well, it’s interesting. That was part of the discussion. And one of the things in order to get the bill running, we had to compromise on some things. I actually preferred not to have a list of conditions. I preferred just to leave it in the hands of doctors because I thought state legislators aren’t really medically trained. There are those conditions. If you have one of those conditions, you go to one of the certified doctors. Doctors can become certified. They have to take a four-hour course, sort of training them on this. And some of this will be spelled out in the regulations. But once they get certified, they recommend specifically what your condition is. And it goes to the Department of Health, which will give you a card entitling you to a certain amount, a certain strain, whatever. And then you would go to a dispensary and pick it up.

Steve: It’s ironic because we obviously trust physicians to certify that an individual is suffering from certain conditions. But we don’t trust them to recommend marijuana for other painful conditions other than those listed. For example, chronic kidney stones or migraines. I mean, was there science behind each one of the listed diseases here?

Sen. Leach: Well, you know, to be honest with you, there was some science and some politics.

Steve: Okay. I note that the American Medical Association and the Pennsylvania Medical Society, if I’m not mistaken, both came out against medical marijuana. And the American Medical Association, in fact, said that there’s insufficient evidence to show that marijuana is helpful in either treating diseases or eliminating pain. And they very specifically say, we agree we need to have more studies. We agree that the drug should be declassified in the federal system so it will be easier to obtain it, to study it, and to exchange ideas. But they’re very clear to say this should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs or the legalization of marijuana.

Why do you suppose the American Medical Association, a well-respected organization, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society, another important state organization, came out against this? And how did you pass this bill in the face of that opposition?

Sen. Leach: Well, first of all, because no one took them seriously. I mean, I’ll tell you why. First of all, when marijuana was made illegal in the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the major opponent of making it illegal was the American Medical Association. It was the second most prescribed drug in the country at the time. And they said, we need this drug. And so, their position changed, number one. Number two, not all medical associations have come out. In New York, other places, they were in favor of the medical marijuana bills that passed in their state.

Pennsylvania Medical Association is a little different. They do not exist for the benefit of patients. Okay? They exist for one purpose, which is to prevent doctors from being sued. They’re mostly active on things like tort reform. And their concern here was…and very direct with me about it, which is that if medical marijuana is legal and a doctor prescribes it, and there’s a bad outcome, they’ll be sued. If a doctor doesn’t prescribe it and there’s a bad outcome, they’ll be sued. That’s what their concern is. So, they were just worried about people being sued.

In terms of the studies, they’re just dead wrong. I mean, someone from the Pennsylvania Medical Society came to testify before my committee. And they said, well, there’s no studies. I’m like, really? And I pulled out a stack of about 140 double-blind, peer-reviewed studies. Because keep in mind, you can study in the United States. It just isn’t going to be paid for by the federal government. But privately funded studies can go on. And in fact, there are many published in Harvard and Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine and major medical publications. Beyond that, the United States is not the only country in the world. And most other countries don’t have insane drug policies.

Steve: Apropos to your last point, I do note that in this act, smokable marijuana will remain illegal.

Sen. Leach: But you can vape it, which is what they do now anyway.

Steve: Okay.

Sen. Leach: You know what vape… For those in your audience who don’t know who vaping is, it’s a pen with a combustion agent that doesn’t light the marijuana on fire. But it creates heat sufficient to create steam, which is… So, it’s like…it would look like smoking to most people.

Steve: Okay. So, the other thing that I wanted to talk about is, who is going to pay for medical marijuana? I note that the law specifically exempts government medical assistant programs and private health insurers from paying for this new medicine. And I find that to be rather curious. Percocet will be paid for by the government, paid for by Aetna or IBC. OxyContin will be paid for, but medical marijuana is exempted. This strikes me as a political measure to get the bill passed.

Sen. Leach: No. The reason that was done is because we had no choice. Under federal law, Medicare or Medicaid can’t pay for it. And it’s because it’s a Schedule I narcotic. You’re absolutely right. It’s crazy that we have insurance or state programs paying for OxyContin, but won’t pay for medical marijuana. It’s crazy. But in order for that to change, we have to reschedule the drug to at least a Schedule III.

Steve: Is medical marijuana a stepping stone to legalized recreational marijuana?

Sen. Leach: Well, first of all, several things. Number one, historically, no. They’re totally different tracks. It’s insane that we put 25,000 of our mostly children into the criminal justice system every year for smoking a plant. You know, you can come home and have a shot of whiskey and you’re a sophisticated man about town. But if you come home and have a joint, you’re a criminal and should be put in a cage. These are insane policies.

Steve: In fact, you introduced legislation, I believe, in 2013 to legalize marijuana and put it in the state store system for sale.

Sen. Leach: But it’s a separate issue. It’ll be dealt with separately. Even if you would legalize marijuana recreationally, you would still need a medical marijuana bill for things like dosage, doctor involvement, insurance, things like that. They’re just separate issues. But at the end of the day, prohibition is only…it’s a matter of time until it’s gone. It’s an antiquated, insane policy which has all of the same problems that the original prohibition had.

Steve: I want to thank you for being here with us on “The Leading Question.” And I want to thank you, our viewers. I hope you enjoyed the show.