Dear Dr. Gupta:

Congratulations on the confirmation as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We welcome your leadership as our respective agendas are to improve and serve the health of the American people.

Dear Attorney General Garland:

Subsequent to the letter sent to you, and to Secretary Becerra, by Senators Warren and Booker dated October 6, 2021 requesting that you exercise your authority under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), we write to support their request and to support your pragmatic efforts to do so.

Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Senators Booker and Wyden:

The below signed stakeholders are collectively parties that have an interest in or work with medical cannabis. We are committed to ensuring qualified physicians administer sound medical cannabis advice, that patients have access to high-quality, safe cannabis medicines, and that appropriate regulatory oversight is implemented to protect the integrity and value of cannabis medicine.

The Association of Cannabis Specialists would like to offer the following comments on the topic of acute and chronic pain management, per the CDC’s request.

Now that recreational cannabis is rolling out in Massachusetts, why do we need a medical cannabis system anymore? The short answer is that patients are different from recreational users and have more complicated, precise needs that recreational sales are incapable of handling.

The ACS believes that cannabis dispensaries play a vital role in providing care and products to patients.  Ideally, dispensaries provide access to high-quality, regulated, and tested cannabis in appropriate forms and for use in appropriate routes of administration to meet patients’ medical needs.

Cannabis Specialists (MD, DO, NP, or PA if authorized by each state program) must keep up to date on the emerging data in the field. Their ability to provide medically appropriate, helpful, and safe treatment depends on being aware of new data in a field that, unlike many more established fields of medicine, is changing weekly if not more frequently.

While a patchwork of state cannabis laws exists, the lack of a unified, federal framework regulating medical cannabis places patients at risk, and undermines the relationships that doctors must maintain to ensure an effective and safe treatment paradigm.  Such a framework is both overdue and sorely needed for safe, optimized care of patients across the country. 

In recent years, the field of cannabis research has experienced an unprecedented boom, with a staggering 32,000 articles shedding light on various aspects of cannabinoid medicine.

Many medications, like benzodiazepines, opioids, and antibiotics can lead to impairment.  We do not prospectively penalize patients who use these substances.  We expect that patients monitor their own impairment and not drive when incapable.