Iowans overwhelmingly support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, but they don't support allowing recreational uses, a new Iowa Poll shows.

Two state senators, one Republican and one Democratic: One voted in favor of the medical cannabis bill that passed in the final hours of the legislative session, one voted against it. Both are unhappy.

In a legislative session that tended to defy prediction, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that medical marijuana was the issue that kept lawmakers up all night as they tried to adjourn. It created odd, bipartisan political alliances as well as conflicts among lawmakers who support medical marijuana.

Two of those lawmakers are Sen. Tom Greene of Burlington and Sen. Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City. Both voted in favor of the Senate’s proposal to significantly expand Iowa’s medical cannabis law. The Senate bill, which passed 45-5, would have allowed the production and distribution of medical marijuana in Iowa for more than 20 diseases or conditions.

Greene, a pharmacist and a Republican, also voted in favor of the whittled-down House version that passed the Legislature in the final hours of the session. Bolkcom, a Democrat, voted against the House bill and has called it the worst medical cannabis law in the country.

Bolkcom said the “reefer madness” panic among House Republican and their insistence that no one should get “high” will deprive many Iowans of needed relief from illness and pain.

“It’s kind of like, you can have a baby aspirin for that, you know it won’t work, but that’s what we’re going to allow you to have,” Bolkcom said Wednesday.

House File 524, which passed with bipartisan support and awaits the governor’s signature, rejected the Senate’s proposal to allow the use of the entire marijuana plant, with higher levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. It maintained Iowa’s existing provision to allow only cannabis oil, which contains less than 3 percent THC.

The House bill would allow, for the first time, the production and distribution of the cannabis oil within the state. It also extended the legal protection that epilepsy patients have in the existing law for possession of the oil. That protection had a July 1 sunset clause and would have been lost if no legislation had passed, Greene noted.

“Bottom line, we had to move something,” Greene said Wednesday. He said he was disappointed with the House bill but felt it wasn’t an option to end the session without action on the issue.

“I think there was politics in play. I hate to say that, but I think there obviously was,” he said.

“I still feel kind of beat up on it,” Greene added.

House Republican leaders, including Speaker Linda Upmeyer, have raised fears that the federal government may decide to enforce laws that still make marijuana possession, production and distribution a crime. The lack of any production or distribution of cannabis oil in Iowa under current law forced patients to transport it across state lines in violation of federal law.

Both Greene and Bolkcom acknowledge the Trump administration, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, could put Iowa families in peril. “That’s a very real concern. They need to get off their butt on this,” Greene said.

Bolkcom said he considers federal fears an empty excuse. Even so, he said the House bill may have made the problem worse by including a reciprocity agreement with the state of Minnesota for Iowans to purchase cannabis oil. He said the agreement appears to violate Minnesota’s law, which “sets off sirens and red lights” for the Justice Department. Under the Justice Department’s current guidance, federal law enforcers have not moved against states that are complying with their own laws related to marijuana.

The legislation allowing production of cannabis oil in Iowa will only work if there’s enough of a market here to attract manufacturers, given the multimillion-dollar startup costs, Bolkcom said. But because the drug allowed in Iowa is so weak, he said, he doubts there will be enough patients to entice a manufacturer.

It’s also an open question how the state will pay for implementing the new program. The Senate version of the bill had an expected administrative cost of more than $600,000. The more limited House bill would still require startup spending, but no appropriation was made, Bolkcom said, and the Department of Public Health took a 13 percent budget cut.

It’s not unusual in the Legislature to see conflicts among advocates of an issue about whether to accept a few beans or to hold out for the whole burrito. Supporters of abortion restrictions have struggled for years against the ideal versus the possible.

Some conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats have suggested Iowa’s medical cannabis bill may be worse than no action. It could lull some lawmakers into complacency that they’ve solved the problem while offering only false hope to suffering Iowans.

But Bolkcom says this bill, however flawed, may create pressure on lawmakers to make Iowa more attractive for manufacturers.

“I actually think they’ve planted a seed here, because they’re on the hook to do something now,” Bolkcom said.

The businesses that want to compete for the manufacturing licenses in Iowa will add pressure toward making a law that will allow a viable industry here, Bolkcom said. “Hopefully, they’ll hire lobbyists and they’ll come to the Capitol and they’ll fix this defective bill that we have.”

Well, Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds did tout the Year of Manufacturing at a news conference earlier this month. Perhaps Republicans’ concern for industry is what will finally break through lawmakers’ fear of marijuana. What a strange trip that would be.