Without any manufacturing or distribution of medical cannabis in the state, very few, if any, patients have taken advantage of the law.
That is not the case in neighboring Minnesota.
One veteran Minnesota House member says there was a specific amendment added that made the idea of a medical marijuana program palatable to legislators.
This month, the third medical marijuana dispensary in Minnesota opened its doors inside a nondescript storefront in a Rochester strip mall.
Minnesota Medical Solutions is one of two companies in the state growing and distributing medical cannabis.
The company grows its marijuana plants at a giant greenhouse in a small city northwest of Minneapolis.
"I would challenge you to find someone in Iowa who, once they see our system here, see how we run things, would oppose that," said Dr. Kyle Kingsley, the company's chief executive officer.
"Our goal is to build a model accepted by mainstream medicine. That's how most patients are going to get access."
Kingsley says the medical marijuana is distributed to dispensaries in pill, liquid and oil form.
Kim Falk's story
Kim Falk says her son Daniel had up to 24 seizures a day.
The Wisconsin family moved to Colorado where he first started a cannabis oil regiment.
Initially, Daniel got worse, but his mother says the seizures started to disappear.
"They stopped eventually, and his cognition has just gotten better and better," she said.
When Minnesota's new medical marijuana law started this month, the Falk family moved to Minnesota because patients must be residents of the state. Then they found a neurologist to certify Daniel's epilepsy.
"We filled out our paperwork. It took half an hour at the most, and paid our fee, so it was really quite simple," the mother said.
Kim was the first customer at the Rochester dispensary.
She tells KCCI that Daniel's month-long supply costs $200. It's not covered by insurance, but she says it's a small price for access to a product she claims has helped her son where many medications have failed.
Falk says the cannabis oil has the CBD compound, which is believed to relieve pain, nausea and convulsions.
It does not contain the best-known marijuana plant compound, THC, which delivers a "marijuana high."
House action
Rep. Kim Norton, D-Rochester, now in her fifth term in the Minnesota House, was originally against the medical cannabis bill.
"When it started being sold as medical marijuana, that's when it started being taken more seriously," she said.
However, two years ago mothers of epileptic children began swarming the Minnesota Capitol.
"They were organized, particularly the young mothers who were there with their children, and that was very moving," Norton said.
She says another big step was an amendment she helped add to the bill. It created a way to record the effectiveness of medical marijuana as it was being used.
"I wanted data that showed this actually worked. We were hearing anecdotal stories, but there was no data," she said.
In Minnesota, each time patients go to a dispensary to pick up their medical cannabis, they must fill out a questionnaire that will help researchers gauge how the patient is responding to their treatment.
"While it's not a peer-reviewed scientific study, it was the closest we could get, as a state, to really monitor it," Norton said. "When that amendment went on, to me it said, 'We're going to treat this seriously, we are going to treat it like a pharmaceutical and we are going to look for results.'"
Implications for Iowa
In Iowa, some of the most vocal opponents at the Capitol have repeatedly said they are waiting for results from a University of Iowa study into the effectiveness of cannabis oil on pediatric epilepsy.
"No more 'I heard this. It was on the Internet, etc, etc.' I want to see results, and then we can move very, very cautiously on something like this," said state Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield.
A University of Iowa spokesman tells KCCI the clinical trial has just started, after the head researcher received approval from the federal government. The study involves 80 participants from across the country.
One group of young patients will be treated with medical cannabis. The other will receive a placebo.
The trial will last 24 weeks.
"We didn't want them to have to wait, and in fact, many people felt it would be immoral to have a test where you have a cohort that's not getting any treatment," Norton said. "They didn't want that kind of research being done."
