February 15, 2023

Bipartisan House Members File Veterans Medical Marijuana Research Bill, With Senate Companion Up For Vote This Week

Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI) introduced the legislation on Tuesday, about a week after Sens. Jon Tester (D) and Dan Sullivan (R) filed a companion version in their chamber.

That Senate measure is scheduled to be taken up in the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, which Tester chairs, on Thursday.

Under the proposal, VA would be tasked with conducting studies that explore the effects of cannabis for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain.

“With the opioid crisis raging across America, it is imperative to the health and safety of our veterans that we find alternative treatments for chronic pain and service-related injuries,” Correa, who has consistently carried earlier iterations of the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act, said in a press release.

“It’s past time the VA did a formal study and began recognizing that cannabis can play a role in our veterans’ healthcare,” the congressman said. “I am honored to have Congressman Bergman, Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jon Tester, and Senator Dan Sullivan join me in taking action to help veterans in need of medical cannabis and opioid alternatives.”

Bergman said that he’s “proud to help introduce this bipartisan legislation to facilitate VA research for medicinal cannabis.”

“This will allow us to explore treatments for chronic pain and other ailments that our Veterans face without the need for opiates,” he said. “It will also ensure the medical safety of our Veterans, providing secure pathways to pain alleviation instead of driving many to self-mediate where marijuana has been legalized.”

The bill has been revised in this latest version to give VA latitude in determining for itself whether it’s capable of overseeing clinical trials into marijuana for chronic pain and PTSD.

The significant change appears to be responsive to concerns expressed by VA officials who testified against the earlier proposals.

A previous version of the legislation cleared a House committee in 2021, despite the protests of VA officials. Earlier iterations of the measure also moved through committee in 2020 and 2018 as well, but none were enacted into law.

The legislation has been revised this Congress to include a requirement for a retroactive observation study to look into the experiences of veterans who’ve used marijuana for such treatment in the past outside of the clinical trail context.

But there’s another change that observers have picked up on as potentially giving VA the ability to avoid fulfilling a key objective on clinical trials.

Within 90 days of completion of an observational study on the effects of cannabis on PTSD and chronic pain, VA would be required to submit a report to Congress on whether it’s capable of carrying out the more robust clinical trials that were at the center of earlier forms of the legislation.

“The Secretary may terminate the clinical trials…if the Secretary determines that the Department of Veterans Affairs is unable to meet clinical guideline requirements necessary to conduct such trials or the clinical trials would create excessive risk to participant,” the bill text says.

The reason that’s important, in part, is because VA has repeatedly come out against past versions of the reform proposal, with the department suggesting that the research mandate goes too far with too many requirements. Under the new language, VA could finish the qualitative observational study and then independently decide against carrying out the clinical trial portion involving human subjects.

Other revisions in the new version include removing language that required studies to involve at least seven cannabis varieties and instead leaving that open-ended. That may help further address some of VA’s prior concerns about the measure being unduly prescriptive.

Correa had a conversation with VA Secretary Denis McDonough about the issue of marijuana and veterans last year, and so there were some heightened expectations that the department might reverse course on the legislation—but that hasn’t happened to date.


By:  Kyle Jaeger
Source: Marijuana Moment