The U.S. House voted last Thursday to let VA doctors recommend medical cannabis to military veterans. Most of the cannabis industry is celebrating. Robb Harmon, who has helped over 1,000 veterans navigate the medical card process through Veterans Cannabis Care, says the vote solves less than people think.
On May 14, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment from Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Dina Titus (D-NV) that would block the Department of Veterans Affairs from enforcing a longstanding directive preventing VA providers from helping veterans register for state medical cannabis programs. The amendment, attached to the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, passed by a voice vote.
Under current policy, VA doctors are allowed to discuss cannabis with their patients but are barred from completing the paperwork needed to enroll them in state programs. As Marijuana Moment reported, veterans currently have to seek outside, often expensive, services from separate providers to obtain medical cannabis access. The Mast-Joyce-Titus amendment, if it survives reconciliation and is enacted into law, would change that.
The cannabis industry and veteran advocacy groups have largely greeted the vote as a long-overdue win. Mast, himself a combat veteran who lost two legs and a finger in Afghanistan, spoke on the floor about waking up in the hospital on a regimen of antidepressants, anti-inflammatories, sedatives and narcotic painkillers. He framed the amendment as a basic question of whether wounded service members deserve to have the same conversation with their doctor that civilians can have with theirs.
None of that is wrong. But Harmon, whose organization has spent years walking veterans through the actual mechanics of obtaining and renewing a state medical card, says the recommendation itself was never really the bottleneck.
“A recommendation without infrastructure creates delay. A recommendation without …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
