Medical Professional Resources

RESOURCES FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

Many of the therapeutic uses for cannabis are well-known and documented, and medical researchers are learning more each day. Medical professionals’ legal right to recommend cannabis is protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, as confirmed by the US Supreme Court in 2004 when it upheld an earlier ruling in Conant v. Walters in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals barred the federal government from punishing or threatening a doctor merely for recommending the use of cannabis to a patient. In 2022, Congress granted medical professionals the explicit right to discuss and recommend cannabis as a treatment in any state, for adult and juvenile patients, with the passage of the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act (Title III section 301).

State rules for qualifying an individual patient for legal protections when using medical cannabis differ as to who may make the recommendation and for what conditions, as well as how that recommendation is communicated to the appropriate state authorities. While there is a lot to navigate, Americans for Safe Access is here to help medical professionals with legal information as well as access to information about incorporating cannabis therapeutics into a patient’s treatment plan. For every legal medical cannabis patient in America, there is a medical professional who has recommended its use.

Today there are over 6 million patients in the US successfully utilizing cannabis therapeutics under state medical cannabis programs. While the federal prohibition of cannabis has limited modern clinical research and resulted in considerable misinformation, a scientific consensus on its therapeutic value has emerged, based on a growing body of successful clinical trials and preclinical research. The experience of patients, medical professionals and research has revealed that cannabis can safely treat a remarkably broad range of medical conditions, often more effectively than conventional pharmaceutical drugs. For some of the most difficult-to-treat conditions, such as multiple sclerosis and neuropathic pain, cannabis often works when nothing else does.

Americans for Safe Access offers medical professionals tools to navigate the current patchwork of medical cannabis laws, the latest medical cannabis information, and resources for patient education. It is important to understand that the state-by-state compassionate use programs are not the ultimate goal for medical cannabis patients, they are triage to aide patients in finding safe cannabis products until we can change federal law, and create a national program that would include prescriptions, standardized products, and a pathway for insurance coverage.

We hope you join us to continue our work for safe access, sign up today to stay connected!

Until there is safe access…We are Americans for Safe Access!