2014 Accomplishments

ASA Accomplishments – 2002 to 2014

• Provided free legal support to tens of thousands patients, providers, and others through our legal hotline, publications, and interactive web page.
• Trained thousands of activists to work on medical cannabis campaigns at the local, state, and federal level using printed materials, seminars, regional tours, and an innovative online training center.
• Trained thousands of citizens to know and assert their rights in a law enforcement encounter.
• Organized the first-ever rapid response to support the victims of federal medical cannabis law enforcement during raids, including an instant text-message alert for activists.
• Organized protests, rallies, and direct actions in support of patients’ rights and safe access nationwide.
• Promoted court support for medical cannabis defendants in hundreds of state and federal cases.
• Distributed more than one million pieces of educational literature about medical cannabis.
• Mounted an effective and ongoing patient-centered media campaign to reframe the issue of medical cannabis as a health care issue.
• Brought citizens face-to-face with lawmakers at all levels of government to talk about medical cannabis using lobby days, offices visits, and organized appearances at public meetings.
• Brought the patients’ voice to the table for the first time in the national conversation on medical cannabis.
• Worked with lawmakers in medical cannabis states to adopt and improve medical cannabis legislation and administrative procedures.
• Worked with elected officials to build capacity for medical cannabis legislation in Congress and support in the administrative agencies.
• Introduced the Truth in Trials Act in Congress, which would allow patients to disclose their legal medical use of cannabis in federal courts.
• Helped convince Congress to lift the eleven year-old ban on Washington, DC’s, medical cannabis law, which the voters passed overwhelmingly in 1998.
• Won important impact litigation in state court to secure the return of wrongfully-confiscated medicine, force implementation of medical cannabis laws, and protect providers.
• Successfully forced the Drug Enforcement Administration to respond to a petition to reschedule medical cannabis after ten years of delay.
• Filed an historic appeal in the United States Supreme Court to force the rescheduling of medical cannabis under federal law.
• Authored numerous amici curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in support of patients’ rights in civil and criminal proceedings.
• Organized a prestigious medical and scientific advisory board to assist policy makers, researchers, and other stakeholders in understanding the science of medical cannabis.
• Hosted two successful conferences with a (60%) increase in attendance in the second year.
• Dramatically expanded the national coalition for medical cannabis by bringing powerful new allies, including the American Herbal Products Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and others.