Politics
Federal Appeals Court Dismisses Cancer Patients’ Case To Use Psilocybin Under Right-To-Try Laws
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected a lawsuit by cancer patients and their doctor seeking access to psilocybin—the main psychoactive compound in psychedelic mushrooms—to help treat end-of-life depression and anxiety.
The patients and Seattle-based palliative care physician Dr. Sunil Aggarwal sued the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in March, after the agency sent a letter saying there was no way for his clinic, the Advanced Integrative Medical Sciences (AIMS) Institute, to dispense a synthetic form of the psilocybin under state and federal right-to-try (RTT) laws. The laws allow patients with terminal conditions to try investigational medications that have not been approved for general use.
In a published opinion filed Monday, the Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the suit on procedural grounds, writing that the court lacked jurisdiction because DEA’s letter was not a reviewable decision.
“In short,” the opinion says, “AIMS’s issue is not with the DEA’s letter, but with the CSA’s criminalization of psilocybin use, subject to narrow exemptions. An advice letter recognizing that Congress has not yet made an exception to the CSA to allow for the legal use of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes is not an agency decision.”
Lawyers for the patients had argued that DEA’s guidance effectively left patients with no path forward — a position that DEA’s own attorney seemed to agree with.
“As the agency indicated in its letter,” Thomas Pulham, a Department of Justice Appellate lawyer, told the panel at oral argument in September, “there’s no procedure available under the Right to Try Act, because the Right to Try Act does not provide the agency any authority to waive the requirements of the Controlled Substances Act.”
Pulham argued that if the AIMS Institute and its patients were to proceed with psilocybin therapy and face enforcement action by the DEA, they could raise their right-to-try arguments at that point.
Attorney Kathryn Tucker, who represents plaintiffs in the case, told Marijuana Moment in a statement Monday that the team will continue to push for access under right-to-try laws through other means.
They next intend to file both a petition for rescheduling and a waiver request—paperwork designed to force the DEA to issue a decision that Tucker said will more clearly constitute a final agency action, “so that the merits can be reached in judicial review if necessary.”
The arguments on the merits themselves are strong, she argued: “DEA must accommodate duly enacted state and federal Right-to-Try laws, as mandated by the Controlled Substances Act. The Petition for Rescheduling offers DEA an alternative and equally compelling way to create a pathway so that terminally ill patients can access to psilocybin. Time is of the essence.”
Last spring, a bipartisan group of attorneys general from eight U.S. states and the District of Columbia sided with the cancer patients in an amicus brief, noting the therapeutic potential of not only psilocybin but also also currently illegal drugs such as MDMA.
“Here, dying patients seek access to promising new treatments still in the investigative process—access expressly permitted under both state and federal law—to help them live in peace,” the top state officials wrote.
The challenge also drew supportive amicus briefs from both the American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Cato and Goldwater institutes.
Last month, a bipartisan group of members of Congress sent a letter urging DEA to let terminally ill patients have access to psilocybin.
At September’s oral arguments, Washington State Deputy Solicitor General Peter B. Gonick appeared alongside attorneys for the plaintiffs to argue that psilocybin fit the criteria for use under right-to-try laws.
“It is entirely consistent with the purpose and language of the state and federal right-to-try laws to include any controlled substances that have completed Phase 1 trials, including Schedule I controlled substances,” he told the panel. “It’s entirely inconsistent with the right-to-try laws to prevent patient access to these treatments.”
Congress and more than 40 states have the laws. In Washington, lawmakers passed a law unanimously in 2017 allowing terminally ill patients access to treatments that have passed Phase 1 of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval process.
“The average time, Phase 1 to FDA approval, is seven to 10 years,” Gonick told judges. “Congress and 41 states determined that was just too long for some patients suffering life-threatening illnesses.”
While judges expressed skepticism during the arguments of DEA’s stance that the federal Right to Try Act and state laws offered no path forward for patients, they were also quick to indicate their wariness to review the case at all.
Less than 10 seconds after arguments began, Judge Ryan D. Nelson suggested that the court’s lack of jurisdiction was “the beginning and the end of the case.”
“They wrote, seeking instructions on how to proceed,” he said of the AIMS Institute’s request for DEA guidance on regarding right-to-try laws. “So if they sought instructions, how can a response for instructions ever be a final order?”
In effect, that was the same conclusion the panel reached in Monday’s opinion. DEA’s letter, the opinion says, “did no more than point to the plain language of existing law.”
In a footnote in the ruling, the court noted that advocates “have recognized that a legislative approach is necessary” to expand access to psilocybin, pointing to Oregon voters’ passage in 2020 of a measure legalizing therapeutic use and adding that “several cities have made the enforcement of psilocybin use low priority.”
As evidenced by state-level cannabis reform, however—and indeed by Washington’s own right-to-try law—such policies may be insufficient to overcome the barriers of federal prohibition. Neither state-level marijuana legalization nor right-to-try laws undo Schedule I restrictions under the CSA. That’s led clinicians like Aggarwal and others in a difficult spot.
“Given that the interests of terminally ill patients are at stake, where the advance of illness makes time short, there is an urgency for DEA’s action,” attorney Tucker said in Monday’s statement. “We hope congressional interest in this matter will continue, and possibly include Congressional Oversight Hearings.”
Meanwhile in Washington, state lawmakers are set to take up a bill in committee this week that would legalize what the legislation calls “supported psilocybin experiences” by adults 21 and older. The measure would establish a legal, regulated psilocybin industry available to all adults of legal age under the support of a trained and state-licensed psilocybin service administrator.
“Under supported adult use, psilocybin services are made available to people 21 and older for nearly any purpose,” Mason Marks, a senior fellow and project lead on the Project at Psychedelics Law and Regulation at Harvard Law School, who helped author the bill, said in a blog post about the bill. “The Act specifies that clients need not have a medical condition to participate, and psilocybin services in Washington will not constitute medical diagnoses or treatment.”
In a statement after the bill was introduced, Aggarwal of the AIMS Institute told Marijuana Moment that the bill had “too many details to comment on” but called it a step in the right direction.
“I would like to see some kind of fast track pathway created for those who may have shortened life expectancies and will not be able to wait the 18 months that are proposed [in the bill] for rule making and implementation.” he said. “There is no need to reinvent the wheel or make this terribly onerous.”
Seattle recently became the largest U.S. city to decriminalize psychedelics following a City Council resolution in October.
Washington lawmakers last legislative session considered a bill that would have removed all penalties for possession of relatively small, “personal use” amounts of drugs and instead invested in treatment and recovery services. While that legislation died in committee, lawmakers from both parties acknowledged at the time that the state’s drug control apparatus was broken.
Shortly thereafter, the state Supreme Court overturned Washington’s felony law against drug possession completely, sending lawmakers scrambling to replace the law. Ultimately they approved a modest reform, reducing the state’s felony charge for drug possession to a misdemeanor and earmarking more money for treatment. But the law’s criminal penalties will expire in 2023, an effort to encourage lawmakers to revisit the policy.
Jurisdictions across the country are increasingly removing or reducing penalties around drug possession and consumption, especially when it comes to psychedelics. Since Denver in 2019 became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, a number of states and municipalities have made similar changes.
Oregon voters passed a pair of initiatives in 2020 to legalize psilocybin therapy and decriminalize possession of all drugs, and Washington, D.C. voters approved a ballot measure that year to deprioritize enforcement of laws criminalizing psychedelics.
Other states have passed more moderate measures, for example Connecticut, which last year passed a law requiring the state to carry out a study into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. Texas also adopted a law last year to study the benefits of psychedelics for military veterans.
California made a push to legalize psychedelics possession last year, and while that measure was put on pause, the bill’s sponsor says he has plans to move it across the finish line this year. Lawmakers in other large states, including Florida and New York have recently filed psychedelics reform bills.
In terms of right-to-try laws, meanwhile, a new Republican-led bill in Missouri would expand that state’s right-to-try law to allow residents with serious illnesses access psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, ibogaine and LSD.
How federal prosecutors would respond to legal psilocybin in Washington state is still an open question. The new bill notes that officials will attempt to meet with federal prosecutors in the state “to discuss this chapter and potential federal enforcement policies.”
Colorado Activists File Competing Psychedelics Legalization Ballot Initiative For 2022
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Mushroom Observer.
Politics
Key Pennsylvania Senate Committee Completes Final Marijuana Legalization Hearing To Inform Reform Legislation
A key Pennsylvania Senate committee on Monday held the last of three scheduled hearings on marijuana legalization, taking testimony that’s designed to help inform a forthcoming reform bill that the panel’s chairman is actively drafting.
The Senate Law and Justice Committee meeting involved testimony from cannabis reform advocates, former regulators from other states and industry stakeholders.
Sen. Mike Regan (R), who chairs the panel, circulated a cosponsorship memo last year along with Rep. Amen Brown (D) to build support for the reform, and these meetings are designed to give lawmakers added context into the best approach to legalization for the state.
“Legalization of adult-use marijuana is a complex and obviously controversial issue,” Regan said at the end of Monday’s discussion. “We are grateful for the many perspectives, personal experiences and opinions we have received. To all my colleagues on the committee, thank you for your continued participation. I look forward to working together on this important issue for Pennsylvania.”
At an initial hearing last month, much of the discussion focused on whether creating a regulated market would be sufficient to eliminate illicit sales, how police would be affected and the impact on impaired driving.
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The second hearing held late last month centered on varying tax structures and other regulatory approaches that have been created in states like Illinois and California.
While reform bills have been introduced in past sessions and the policy change has the support of Gov. Tom Wolf (D), this latest hearing marks only the third time a legislative panel has debated recreational legalization in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania General Assembly.
JM Pedini, development director of NORML and executive director of Virginia NORML, spoke about regulatory models and said that in their capacity as a member of the Virginia Governor’s Marijuana Task Force, “one of our principle tasks was recommending the form and function of the new regulatory structure.”
“I can tell you, having examined this issue in many jurisdictions, the best model is one that utilizes a single, cannabis dedicated regulator,” they said, responding to the idea that the existing medical marijuana program and a new adult-use one could instead be controlled by differing regulatory bodies. “This was the recommendation we made in Virginia based on an examination of best practices in several jurisdictions. And based on that experience, I can confirm that Pennsylvania’s program exhibits the challenges presented when a cannabis regulator is cast into an existing department.”
These Pennsylvania hearings have provided a broad overview of the experiences in out-of-state markets, rather than specific legislative proposals like a bipartisan measure introduced last year by Sens. Dan Laughlin (R) and Sharif Street (D).
Those senators also recently filed introduced a bill that would allow medical marijuana patients to cultivate their own plants for personal use. Street had attempted to get the reform enacted as an amendment to an omnibus bill this summer, but it did not advance.
Meanwhile, Street is behind another recent cannabis measure to provide state-level protections to banks and insurers that work with cannabis businesses.
In the interim, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), who is running for U.S. Senate this year, said one of his key goals in his final year in office is to ensure that as many eligible people as possible submit applications to have the courts remove their cannabis records and restore opportunities to things like housing, student financial aid and employment through an expedited petition program.
Pennsylvania lawmakers could also take up more modest marijuana reform proposals like a bill filed late last year to expand the number of medical marijuana cultivators in the state, prioritizing small farms to break up what she characterized as a monopoly or large corporations that’s created supply problems.
Additionally, another pair of state lawmakers—Reps. Jake Wheatley (D) and Dan Frankel (D)—formally unveiled a legalization bill they’re proposing last year.
Philadelphia voters also approved a referendum on marijuana legalization in November that adds a section to the city charter saying that “the citizens of Philadelphia call upon the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the Governor to pass legislation that will decriminalize, regulate, and tax the use, and sale to adults aged 21 years or older, of cannabis for non-medical purposes.”
Wolf, the governor, said last year that marijuana legalization was a priority as he negotiated the annual budget with lawmakers. However, his formal spending request didn’t contain legislative language to actually accomplish the cannabis policy change.
The governor, who signed a medical cannabis expansion bill in June, has repeatedly called for legalization and pressured the Republican-controlled legislature to pursue the reform since coming out in favor of the policy in 2019. Shortly after he did that, a lawmaker filed a separate bill to legalize marijuana through a state-run model.
A survey from Franklin & Marshall College released last year found that 60 percent of Pennsylvania voters back adult-use legalization. That’s the highest level of support for the issue since the firm started polling people about it in 2006.
An attempt to provide protections for Pennsylvania medical marijuana patients from being charged with driving under the influence was derailed in the legislature last year, apparently due to pushback by the state police association.
Connecticut Lawmakers Discuss Bill To Fund Psilocybin And MDMA Therapy
Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso.
A Connecticut legislative committee on Monday discussed a bill that would set the state up to provide certain patients with access to psychedelic-assisted treatment with substances like MDMA and psilocybin. Former top military officials, advocates and scientists testified in favor of the proposal.
The joint Public Health Committee took oral and written testimony on HB 5396, which would create a psychedelic treatment centers in the state, pending approval of the substances by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under its expanded access program for investigational new drugs.
The bill would not legalize the psychedelics; rather, it would set up regulatory infrastructure to enable Connecticut to play a leading role in providing access to this alternative treatment option as federal agencies continue to fund and facilitate clinical trials.
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Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.
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Psychedelic therapy would be specifically provided and funded for military veterans, retired first responders, health care workers and any person from a “historically underserved community, and who has a serious or life-threatening mental or behavioral health disorder and without access to effective mental or behavioral health medication.”
“I firmly believe that we have a duty, responsibility and, more than ever, an urgency to help…all those suffering from trauma to heal and move forward as productive members of our society,” retired Marine Lt. Gen Martin Steele said at the hearing. “I also believe we have failed to do so for a very long time. Reversing these trends require bold but thoughtful and strategic action.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed a bill last year that includes language requiring the state to carry out a study into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin mushrooms. A workgroup has since been meeting to investigate the issue.
The new legislation would require the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to launch a “psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program to provide qualified patients with the funding” to receive MDMA- or psilocybin-assisted therapy as part of FDA’s expanded access program, the text of the bill states.
The pilot program would cease “when MDMA and psilocybin have been approved to have a medical use by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), or any successor agency.” At that point, state statute on the substances would be aligned with the federal government’s.
In the interim, the bill would further establish a Qualified Patients for Approved Treatment Sites Fund (PAT Fund) to provide “grants to qualified applicants to provide MDMA-assisted or psilocybin assisted therapy to qualified patients under the pilot program.”
“Approved treatment sites shall collect and submit data to the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, including, but not limited to, its protocols for the provision of MDMA-assisted and psilocybin-assisted treatment, training on the facilitation of such treatment, implementation of facility standards, strategies for patient protection and mitigation of drug diversion.”
The bill would further create a Connecticut Psychedelic Treatment Advisory Board under the department. Legislative leaders and the governor would be empowered to appoint members of the board.
“The guiding rule here is: Let’s get the right treatment for the right patient at the right time,” Stephen Xenakis, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, said at the hearing. “We need to have a broad array of services available—and now we have the capability to do that with the developments that have come in understanding the benefits that comes from MDMA and psilocybin and other such agents.”
The board would be tasked with making recommendation on the “design and development of the regulations and infrastructure necessary to safely allow for therapeutic access to psychedelic-assisted therapy upon the legalization of MDMA, psilocybin and any other psychedelic compounds.”
There would be seven key areas that the board would be responsible for advising the department on:
- Reviewing and considering the data from the psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program…to inform the development of such regulations
- Advising the department on the necessary education, training, licensing and credentialing of therapists and facilitators, patient safety, harm reduction, the establishment of equity measures in both clinical and therapeutic settings, cost and insurance reimbursement considerations and standards of treatment facilities
- Advising the department on the use of group therapy and other therapy options to reduce cost and maximize public health benefits from psychedelic treatments
- Monitoring updated federal regulations and guidelines for referral and consideration by the state agencies of cognizance for implementation of such regulations and guidelines.
- Developing a long-term strategic plan to improve mental health care through the use of psychedelic treatment.
- Recommending equity measures for clinical subject recruitment and facilitator training recruitment
- Assisting with the development of public awareness and education campaigns.
Former state Rep. Jesse MacLachlan (R), who now works at the advocacy group Reason For Hope, testified in favor of the legislation. He emphasized the need to “build a bridge of information, of infrastructure, and of more real world application of what this treatment looks like outside of the clinical trial.”
He said Connecticut needs “to be ready for when the FDA does approve MDMA in 2023 and psilocybin in 2024 because, when that happens and these therapies begin to enter the mainstream, there will be a there will be a deluge of patient intake.”
“Yes, we need more federal testing. Yes, we need a lot more information before it becomes something that is widely used,” Public Health Committee Co-chairman Jonathan Steinberg (D) said at the hearing. “But even then, we’re talking about a very narrow context. When I say ‘widely,’ it’s still a very small group of individuals for whom this would be an appropriate therapy, but only by our willingness to push the bounds are we going to find these kinds of options for people.”
Thomas Burr of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Connecticut said in written testimony that, “for too long Connecticut has seemingly been stuck with the standard treatment methods around mental health conditions, with correspondingly lackluster results.”
“We feel that it is far past time to study different, perhaps even unorthodox treatments, that show great promise,” Burr said.
Lynnette Averill of Baylor College of Medicine said in written testimony that the bill would allow Connecticut to “jump start their infrastructure building as MDMA and psilocybin both have a breakthrough therapy indication from the FDA and are expected to obtain approval within the next 2 years.”
It also “allows for [Connecticut] residents to perhaps receive urgently needed care who would otherwise be excluded. For example, many clinical trials exclude ‘complex’ patients as the psychiatric and medical co-morbidities, the medications, the chaotic lifestyles, etc. can ‘muddy’ the data some,” she said. “However, these people are in desperate need of effective interventions and this program would support these individuals in receiving care (of course, when screened and determined to be safe and appropriate to engage in the treatment).”
Also in Connecticut, regulators announced in January that they would start accepting certain marijuana business license applications at the beginning of February.
The news follows a meeting of the state’s Social Equity Council (SEC), where members approved a technical assistance plan for the cannabis industry that will involve outreach and providing resources to people interested in participating in the market. That plan’s finalization was a necessary condition to trigger the start of the licensing process under the legalization law signed by Gov. Ned Lamont (D) last year.
SEC met for the first time in March, just weeks after Lamont signed a marijuana legalization bill into law.
Among other agenda items, the 15-person group approved a list of geographic areas disproportionately impacted by the drug war, which will be used to determine eligibility for social equity business licenses. Under the state’s new cannabis law, half of all licenses must go to equity applicants, who may also qualify for lower licensing fees, technical assistance, workforce training and funding to cover startup costs.
Over the summer, Lamont also announced the launch of a new website to provide residents with up-to-date information on the state’s new marijuana legalization law.
As it stands, adults 21 and older are already able to possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis for personal use.
In the psychedelics space, reform is advancing in states across the country.
For example, the Washington State legislature last week sent a budget bill to the governor’s desk that includes a proposal to direct $200,000 in funding to support a new workgroup to study the possibility of legalizing psilocybin services in the state, including the idea of using current marijuana regulatory systems to track psychedelic mushrooms.
A bipartisan coalition of Georgia lawmakers recently filed a resolution that calls for the formation of a House study committee to investigate the therapeutic potential of psychedelics like psilocybin and make recommendations for reforms.
Last week, the Hawaii Senate approved a bill to set up a state working group to study the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin mushrooms and develop a “long-term” plan to ensure that the psychedelic is accessible for medical use for adults 21 and older.
Also last week, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill this week to decriminalize low-level possession of psilocybin and promote research into the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic.
Rhode Island lawmakers introduced a pair of drug decriminalization bills this month—including one focused on psilocybin and buprenorphine that would authorize doctors to prescribe the psychedelic mushroom.
Also this month, a Missouri Republican lawmaker filed a bill that would legalize a wide range of psychedelics for therapeutic use at designated care facilities while further decriminalizing low-level possession in general.
Last month, Utah lawmakers sent a bill to the governor that would create a task force to study and make recommendations on the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs and possible regulations for their lawful use.
An Oregon Senate committee also recently advanced a bill to ensure that equity is built into the state’s historic therapeutic psilocybin program that’s actively being implemented following voter approval in 2020.
A group of Maryland senators recently filed a bill that would create a state fund that could be used to provide free access to psychedelics like psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine for military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while also supporting research into their therapeutic potential.
A bill to decriminalize a wide array of psychedelics in Virginia was taken up by a House of Delegates panel in January, only to be pushed off until 2023. A separate Senate proposal to decriminalize psilocybin alone was later defeated in a key committee.
California Sen. Scott Wiener (D) told Marijuana Moment in a recent interview that his bill to legalize psychedelics possession stands a 50/50 chance of reaching the governor’s desk this year. It already cleared the full Senate and two Assembly committees during the first half of the two-year session.
Washington State lawmakers also introduced legislation in January that would legalize what the bill calls “supported psilocybin experiences” by adults 21 and older.
New Hampshire lawmakers filed measures to decriminalize psilocybin and all drugs.
Legislation was also enacted by the Texas legislature last year requiring the state to study the medical risks and benefits of psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine for military veterans in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine and a military-focused medical center.
Colorado officials last week approved the language of two more psychedelics reform initiatives from the same campaign that already passed that procedural step for two separate measures it submitted late last year. A competing campaign filed a different psychedelics legalization last month.
Michigan activists filed a statewide ballot initiative last month that would legalize possessing, cultivating and sharing psychedelics and set up a system for their therapeutic and spiritual use.
A pair of Michigan senators also introduced a bill in September to legalize the possession, cultivation and delivery of an array of plant- and fungi-derived psychedelics like psilocybin and mescaline.
At the congressional level, bipartisan lawmakers sent a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) last month, urging that the agency allow terminally ill patients to use psilocybin as an investigational treatment without the fear of federal prosecution.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman.
Politics
VA Won’t Provide Grants For Marijuana Treatment As Part Of Proposed Veteran Suicide Prevention Initiative
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is making clear it won’t provide support for treatment involving marijuana as part of a new grants program aimed at preventing veteran suicide
In a notice on a proposed interim final rule for the new Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program published in the Federal Register on Thursday, VA said the three-year, community-based effort will “provide or coordinate the provision of suicide prevention services to eligible individuals and their families for the purpose of reducing veteran suicide.”
But while many veterans and service organizations representing the community have repeatedly testified to Congress and federal agencies that cannabis represents a potential treatment option for medical conditions that commonly afflict military veterans returning from service, VA, perhaps not surprisingly, is drawing a line in the sand when it comes to supporting treatment regimens involving marijuana.
It’s “important for VA to note that any approaches and treatment practices approved will need to be consistent with applicable Federal law,” the department said in the notice. “For example, the use of grant funds to provide or coordinate the provision of marijuana to eligible individuals and their families will be prohibited, as marijuana is currently illegal under Federal law.”
That’s despite the fact that there is a carve out for prospective grantees providing or coordinating “nontraditional and innovative approaches…including but not limited to complementary or alternative interventions with some evidence for effectiveness of improving mental health or mitigating a risk factor for suicidal thoughts and behavior.”
The interim final rule is set to take effect on April 11, and public comments will continue to be accepted until May 9.
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Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.
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VA’s position on marijuana has been a source of consistent frustration for advocates and veteran service organizations who have been pushing for expanded research into the therapeutic potential of cannabis.
House and Senate committees held joint hearings this month to hear from veterans service organizations (VSOs) about how Congress and the federal government can better serve their constituents, and several of the groups brought up the need to ease restrictions on marijuana.
The testimony echoes what the VSOs have repeatedly raised with lawmakers. The specifics ranged in scope between the various groups, but the overall message was made clear: military veterans uniquely stand to benefit from marijuana treatment and it’s time for Congress to do something about it.
Separately, military veterans would be “encouraged” to discuss medical marijuana treatment without the fear of losing federal benefits under a new bill being sponsored by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA).
The main thrust of the legislation is to codify existing policies that allow VA doctors to talk about medical cannabis with patients as well as protections for veterans who are candid about their history with marijuana treatment. By doing so, it would enshrine these polices into law so that they could not later be changed administratively by future VA leaders.
Congressional Democrats Elevate Marijuana Equity Issues At Retreat Panel Focused On Legalization
