Medical Cannabis Divides South Carolina’s GOP AG Candidates

A Republican primary for South Carolina’s attorney general is exposing something the state party rarely puts on stage: a genuine internal split over medical cannabis.

Three GOP candidates — State Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, and 8th Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo — clashed at a May 28, 2026, debate broadcast by SCETV, with Pascoe backing a path to medical marijuana, Stumbo calling the state’s pending bill a political Trojan horse, and Goldfinch declining a direct answer while arguing hemp regulation must come first. Early voting for the June 9, 2026, primary was already underway by the time the debate aired; the Republican nominee will face Charleston attorney Richard Hricik in November.

The race opened when four-term incumbent AG Alan Wilson stepped aside to run for governor.

Where the Candidates Stand on Medical Cannabis

Pascoe, who switched his party registration to Republican to enter the race, was the most direct. He supports state-level medical marijuana authorization, citing conditions the state’s pending Compassionate Care Act would cover — epilepsy, cancer, and other debilitating illnesses.

“I can tell you, it absolutely does help children with seizures,” Pascoe said at the debate. “It does help cancer patients, because we all know them in our lives.”

He also cited the federal rescheduling process underway at the DEA, which is moving cannabis from the most-restrictive federal schedule toward a less-restricted classification, as a reason to revisit how the state approaches enforcement. “I applaud the Department of Justice for that rescheduling,” he said.

Stumbo took the opposing view. The state has already legalized low-THC industrial hemp, he said, and going further opens a door the state should keep closed. “I believe the medical marijuana bill now is just a Trojan horse for recreational use, and I oppose it,” Stumbo said.

Goldfinch’s position was the most complicated — and arguably the most telling. He has a legislative record on this issue: he voted for the Compassionate Care Act in both the 2022 and 2024 sessions, when the Senate passed the bill both times. He is also listed as a co-sponsor of the current session’s version, S. 53, alongside Senators Davis and Sutton. But in front of a primary electorate, he declined to say yes or no. His stated priority shifted to hemp: the state’s dispensaries and gas stations are already selling intoxicating hemp-derived drinks and gummies that operate in a regulatory gray area, he argued, and the unregulated market is the more pressing problem.

“Whatever your position is, honestly, I think it’s a moot point at this point, because it is ubiquitous in South Carolina, and it’s a real problem, especially the stuff that’s unregulated,” Goldfinch said. “It needs to be regulated.”

Two Unresolved Bills, One Crowded Legislature

The Compassionate Care Act pending in the current session sits in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee. The General Assembly has passed versions of this legislation in the Senate twice before: a 2022 version was killed on a technical procedural ruling when House floor debate began, and a 2024 version cleared the Senate but ran out of time in a House committee. Neither reached a House floor vote, and the bill’s sponsors have not publicly announced a floor push for the current session.

On hemp, the General Assembly has competing proposals. A House measure introduced in February 2025, the Consumable Hemp Licensing and Regulation Act, would create a licensing framework for hemp-derived consumable products under the state Department of Agriculture, impose age-21 purchase requirements, require independent lab testing, and add a 2 percent excise tax on retail sales. A separate Senate bill addresses hemp-derived cannabinoids under agricultural licensing. The two chambers have not reconciled their approaches, and a floor vote before the session ends remains possible.

Goldfinch’s argument — that hemp regulation must precede any medical marijuana push — reflects a real sequencing dilemma. Intoxicating hemp products are already on South Carolina shelves in largely unregulated form; layering a medical cannabis program on top without first addressing that market would compound the enforcement challenges facing any AG. The policy order is not academic.

What the AG Position Actually Controls

None of the three candidates would have direct authority over whether the state legalizes medical cannabis — that’s a legislative decision. But the AG’s office shapes what enforcement looks like in the meantime. South Carolina’s attorney general issues formal opinions that guide local law enforcement, advises state agencies on how to administer statutes, and can choose how aggressively to pursue cannabis-related prosecutions while legislative questions remain open.

An AG’s posture on cannabis enforcement — whether to treat unregulated hemp sales as criminal distribution or to await legislative clarity, whether to challenge the federal rescheduling rule in court or accept it — carries real consequences. Three Republican attorneys general in other states are already suing to block the federal rescheduling proceeding, signaling that AGs have meaningful tools to shape cannabis outcomes without the legislature acting.

South Carolina’s next AG will inherit a state with no functioning medical cannabis program, a hemp market operating in a regulatory gap, and a federal framework whose final shape is still being decided. The three candidates’ debate positions are a preview of how they’d manage that inheritance — and the disagreement between them is sharper than most Republican primaries in this state have seen.