Thursday’s ruling Judge Joel Novak doesn’t legalize medical marijuana in Iowa, but it requires the Iowa Board of Pharmacy to consider whether it’s properly classified as a Schedule I substance.

To be classified as Schedule I, a drug must have a high potential for abuse and no safe medical use within the U.S.

Last summer, a group, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, petitioned the pharmacy board to remove marijuana from the Schedule I classification. The board ruled against the petition last fall and the ACLU appealed.

The judge’s ruling says the board must review the classification and decide whether marijuana has an accepted medical use.

Before Monday's decision, the FDA had agreed to make the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B available without a prescription only to women 18 and older and only from a pharmacy counter. The Center for Reproductive Rights sued the government in Brooklyn Federal Court, charging the FDA put politics before science in drafting the rules.

In his written decision, Judge Edward Korman noted there appeared to be “political considerations, delays and implausible justifications” in the decision-making process. “The record shows that FDA officials and staff both agreed that 17-year-olds can use Plan B safely without a prescription,” Korman wrote.

Korman said the FDA's justification for this age restriction, that pharmacists would be unable to enforce the prescription requirement if the cutoff were age 17 rather than 18, lacks credibility.

“While the FDA is free, on remand, to exercise its expertise and discretion regarding the proper disposition of the citizen’s petition, no useful purpose would be served by continuing to deprive 17 year olds access to Plan B without a prescription,” Korman said.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office, which represented the FDA, told various media outlets the ruling is being reviewed.

It really comes down to a difference in people’s moral opinion about the “Morning After Pill”, also called the “Plan B” pill.

The same type of person that would be against the now over-the-counter medication might also not believe in dispensing any form of birth control, if say for instance they were Catholic.

If you think there isn’t a demand for what some people view as the abortion pill, you’re wrong. At least one local pharmacy in town doles out “Plan B” five to six times a week according to an employee who didn’t want their name to be mentioned.

Doctorate professors at Idaho State University say bill passage or not, they’ve always had the right to refuse. Some believe that’s simply not the issue at hand.

Dr. Christopher Owens, Department Chair of Pharmacy Practice: “The way you go about refusing is most important and you can object but you cannot obstruct medical care.”

Owens says they equip students with the knowledge to handle all situations professionally, whether or not they agree with the patient’s moral ethics. The students in Pocatello are taught to not persuade or bully if they disagree and to find someone else to fill their prescription in a timely manner.

Dr. Christopher Owens, Department Chair of Pharmacy Practice: “If you do have these deeply held conviction about this, then maybe you should not take a job at this pharmacy or that pharmacy, I mean they can practice in how many different settings.”

Supporters of the bill say the intent is to guarantee their right to refuse and protect pharmacists from being fired. Something that seems to be unheard of around here.

Dr. Cathy Heyneman, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice: “I’ve never heard of a pharmacist being disciplined for not dispersing a medication.”

Student Daren Kunz says he’s never felt any pressure by his pharmacy employer but still thinks it’s a good idea to put the unspoken understanding in writing.

Daren Kunz, Third Year Pharmacy Student: “I’m in favor based on the fact we are professionals not just monkeys filling prescriptions. We should be allowed to make clinical judgements. We already do on a daily basis.”

A House Committee passed the bill Wednesday. It now heads to the house for a full vote.

Only four other states have passed similar legislation.

You do have to be 18 to buy the Plan B pill.

The two lawmakers are co-sponsors of S. 511, the Access to Durable Medical Equipment
Act of 2009. The bill adds pharmacists to a list of 17 medical professionals that
are exempted from new accreditation requirements for Medicare Part B durable medical
equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies.

The National Community Pharmacists Association welcomed the legislation.
“Pharmacists keep patients healthy, not only by dispensing much needed medication,
but by providing the medical supplies necessary for their patients health. Senators
John Tester and Sam Brownback are to be commended for their leadership in
introducing S. 511,” said NCPA EVP and CEO Bruce Roberts and president Holly Henry
in a joint statement March 4.

“This much needed bill demonstrates that these senators are committed to our nations patients and maintaining the ease of services provided by their community pharmacists.”

Bill proponents say more training and education are needed to prevent prescription and medicine errors.

“In two weeks time, I went from working, folding linens in a linen store to making IVs at a pharmacy,” said Natasha Nicols, who has since become a pharmacist. She’s now president-elect of the S.C. Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which backed the bill.

It could be next session before a compromise could be brokered and a subcommittee of lawmakers takes the bill back up, said its sponsor, Rep. Kit Spires, a pharmacist and Lexington County Republican.

At issue is that nearly 5,000 of the state’s more than 7,400 technicians are not certified pharmacy technicians even though they work behind pharmacy counters, preparing medicines and filling prescriptions.

Instead, would-be techs pay a $40 registration fee. They are required to work under the supervision of a pharmacist and take 10 hours of continuing education annually.

No state agency tracks the number of prescription errors that occur in the state’s pharmacies. One is too many, said Kathy Darragh, of Greenwood, who told lawmakers Tuesday her granddaughter died after receiving an overdose of intravenous medicine in a hospital in South Carolina in 2002.

A tech and pharmacist failed to catch the error when filling an IV prescription, she said.

“My granddaughter fought many battles in her life and survived,” Darragh said. Complications from a surgery meant the child relied on IV injections to receive drugs and nutrition.

“But human error is not one you can fight against,” said Darragh, who became an IV pharmacy tech after the tragedy.

Opponents of the bill, including the S.C. Association of Chain Drug Stores, said the bill would hinder pharmacies’ abilities to recruit technicians.

“The real danger is an overwhelmed pharmacist with no help,” said Kevin Floyd, a Charleston pharmacist and president of the association. “It’s about a yearlong process to gain state certification.”

Floyd said rural areas and small pharmacies would suffer the most if the bill passed because they would not be able to fill technician positions.

“The cost of education and the time commitment is a barrier to lots of folks,” he said.

Under the bill, starting in 2012, pharmacy techs would be required to complete a certification program at a technical school, log 1,000 hours of work experience under a pharmacist and pass an exam.

Spires said the bill’s educational requirements are too stiff for the economic times and he will work on a compromise.