Feds Consider Bill Allowing Limited Medical Marijuana Use, Will They Give In?

Federal lawmakers may come one step closer to decriminalizing marijuana for the first time by considering a bill that would approve some types of pot for medical use, CNN reported.

Under the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is still illegal. But the House bill to be introduced Monday would amend the law allowing cannabis strains if the levels of THC, the chemical which activates the sensation of being high, are less than 0.3 percent.

Marijuana advocates expect the bill will receive widespread support in Congress.

"If this bill gets support, it will demonstrate that there is recognition of marijuana's medical benefits," Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told the station.

Though pot is still illegal under federal law, a record number of states are passing laws decriminalizing its use in some form, most notably Colorado and Washington. Eleven other states this year have passed laws allowing marijuana strains with low THC levels, according to CNN.

A similar bill at the federal level would benefit patients like Haleigh Cox, a young girl who suffers from seizures and was given three months to live in March, CNN reported. Her mother, Janea Cox, had to move to Colorado because the type of medical marijuana she heard would help was not available in her home state of Georgia.

Now, instead of having over 100 seizures a day, Haleigh has only a handful, due to the four daily doses of cannabis oil she takes. But some dismiss the medical marijuana success stories as nothing but shenanigans.

"There is no evidence for marijuana as a treatment for seizures," Representative John Fleming, a Louisiana Republican, told the station. "We hear anecdotal stories, and that's how myths come about."

Haleigh may be healthy, but it comes at the expense of her family being divided because her father could not leave his job back in Georgia.

"No one should face a choice of having their child suffer or moving to Colorado and splitting up their family," Representative Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania who sponsored the bill, told CNN. "We live in America, and if there's something that would make my child better, and they can't get it because of the government, that's not right."