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Ryan Bartell was 40, a teacher who worked with autistic children, when he entered a hospital experiencing severe but undiagnosed pain.
He learned he had Stage IV pancreatic cancer. He lived seven more weeks before his death in Seattle in April, 2018. During that time, his father said on Thursday, it was medical cannabis that allowed Ryan Bartell to live with a dignity he would not have had otherwise.
The Pennsylvania Senate Law & Justice Committee heard a statement from Jim Martell on Tuesday – and he reiterated major points in a phone interview on Thursday – supporting a bill to ensure terminally ill hospital patients can access medical cannabis.
Dubbed “Ryan’s Law”, the bill passed by unanimous vote. It now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
Under the bill, terminally ill hospital patients could use medical cannabis – excluding forms that require smoking or vaping – within the facility even if they are not part of the hospital’s hospice or medical protocols.
The vote came in a state with a well-entrenched medical cannabis program but with a deep divide on allowing recreational marijuana.
Last year, the same committee rejected a bill to legalize recreational weed via sales in state stores. This year, the entire Senate in bipartisan fashion rejected a bill to create a Cannabis Control Board.
The “Ryan’s Law” bill is “more about compassionate care for the terminally ill” than it is about marijuana, Jim Bartell said.
It was introduced in Pennsylvania by Sen. John Kane of Chester County, who read the statement from Jim Bartell at the Tuesday committee meeting. The bill, Bartell said, is about dignity at the end of life.
During a portion of his final weeks, Ryan Bartell was “heavily sedated with fentanyl and morphine not because those drugs worked well, but because they were the only options allowed in this hospital,” the statement said. Ultimately, Ryan Bartell was transferred to a hospital where access to medical cannabis was permitted.
“His pain was managed without sedation,” the statement said. “He could speak, he could laugh. He could say goodbye to his wife and son. That difference mattered.”
Jim Bartell undertook a mission to ensure terminally ill hospital patients in states with medical cannabis programs could access it while in the health care facility.
As of Thursday, he said, 11 states had enacted some sort of law. The rate of progress in getting laws in place has accelerated since medical marijuana was reclassified earlier this year from one of the most restricted drug classifications to a less regulated category.
Thirty-seven states have medical cannabis programs. Jim Bartell’s goal is to have “Ryan’s Law” put into place in each one.
“It is going to help millions of people, over time,” he said.