The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on amendments this week to a budget bill. These would allow doctors in the Department of Veterans Affairs of the United States to give medical marijuana prescriptions to veterans, and to support access to and research into psychedelics.
House Rules Committee amended the bill on cannabis and psychedelics for consideration by the House floor for the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies appropriations (MilConVA).
One of the proposals from Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Dave Joyce (R-OH)—who are both co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus—would increase veterans’ access to state medical marijuana programs and eliminate a current VA directive barring the department’s doctors from issuing cannabis recommendations.
The text of the amended amendment is below:
“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Veterans Affairs in this Act may be used to enforce Veterans Health Directive 1315 as it relates to—
(1) the policy stating that ‘VHA providers are prohibited from completing forms or registering Veterans for participation in a State-approved marijuana program’;
(2) the directive for the ‘Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and Management’ to ensure that ‘medical facility Directors are aware that it is VHA policy for providers to assess Veteran use of marijuana but providers are prohibited from recommending, making referrals to or completing paperwork for Veteran participation in State marijuana programs’; and
(3) the directive for the ‘VA Medical Facility Director’ to ensure that ‘VA facility staff are aware of the following’ ‘[t]The prohibition on recommending or making referrals, or filling out forms to register Veterans in State-approved Marijuana Programs’.
I’m not an expert. Mast told the Rules Committee that I would not presume to say when people should use cannabis as a medical treatment. He recounted the difficult road he took to recover from the wounds he received in Afghanistan.
“I woke up in a hospital called Walter Reed one day, and I can tell you that when I woke up in that hospital—missing two legs and a finger—I woke up on a laundry list of narcotics and medications, things I had never been on in my life,” he said, adding that he went through a “gamut” of withdrawal symptoms from the opioids he was given.
The point is that there are other options, he explained. “I would not say when these alternatives are appropriate. But I do know that if someone is receiving all of their medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs that they should be able have this discussion with their provider about their future health plans.”
If they don’t feel they can trust the person who is providing them with their healthcare, then they are failing themselves. They will look at a route that they have in mind. This would be better done under their doctor’s direction. And so that’s what my amendment is about…just making sure that those doctors have the ability to not be prohibited from speaking to those veterans about something that they may be otherwise considering through legal programs in their state.”
Mast re-filed the Veterans Equal Access Act in February. The provisions are based on that bill. The measure has been bipartisan supported in recent sessions, but it still isn’t law. The measure has been advanced in both committees and the house, but it still isn’t law.
In past years, both the House and Senate have included provisions in their respective MilConVA measures that would permit VA doctors to make the medical cannabis recommendations, but they have never been enacted into law.
A second MilConVA clause being discussed along with this year’s House Bill, by Reps. Lou Correa and Jack Bergman from the Democratic Party of California (D-CA), encourages VA to fund research on the use of psychedelics for treating common medical conditions that affect military veterans.
This is the short summary of what the Amendment says:
The Department of Veterans Affairs should increase and decrease the funding allocated to the Medical and Prosthetic Research accounts to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs the opportunity to make changes in its healthcare system to incorporate approved psychedelic therapy into the care of veterans with conditions such as PTSD and drug use disorders. It would be necessary to support the dissemination and development of training programs and supervision for providers, as well as pilot programs that inform the clinical implementation of the therapies.
The suicide rate among veterans is up to twenty per day. It’s not enough to have one veteran commit suicide. Correa, in a recent press release, said that veterans of our country continue to face tragically high rates of opioid overdose and suicide after their return. While the VA is finally studying the impact of groundbreaking therapies such as psychedelics to veterans with invisible wounds the time has come to prepare for the distribution of these therapies to one day ensure the safety and health of America’s valiant soldiers.
“It’s my hope that my colleagues—Democrat and Republican alike—will join us in getting this amendment signed into law and kickstart our work to get our veterans the care they deserve,” he said.
Bergman said that many warriors who served their country honorably returned home to a new kind of war.
“I spent years advocating solutions to meet Veterans exactly where they are. I’ve also explored innovative therapies that have shown promise in treating the invisible injuries of war,” said he. “We owe it to our Veterans to create more options for help and less hoops to jump through – they shouldn’t come home to a new fight.”
House of Representatives approved Tuesday the procedure under which expenditure legislation will be reviewed, but didn’t begin to consider amendments until later this week.
This year, there were significantly fewer amendments related to cannabis than previous years. However the Rules Committee previously rejected other Democratic-led reforms including blocking drug testing for federal applicants who live in states with legalization.
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