Unfortunately, many members of the public, media, and politicians mistakenly believe that passing an adult-use law will both improve access for patients, expand access to others, and more justly resolve the harms of the War on Drugs. They are unaware of the issues currently faced by patients and don’t realize that implementing new laws could actually harm access for patients.
One of the most effective ways to raise public awareness of these issues is to increase the amount of media coverage and the best part is that each of us can contribute very directly to this effort. By writing a Letter to the Editor or an Editorial for your local media you not only get our message to the public in your community (and online) but you also get the journalists at that outlet thinking about patient perspectives.
Hopefully the next time they are writing an article about cannabis they’ll remember your letter and think “Maybe I should include a quote from a medical cannabis patient in this article.” Those effects can snowball and help us get medical cannabis patients in the conversation.
It might seem daunting to write your first letter to your local paper but we’re here to offer some advice and guidance to help you and once you’ve got one published there will be no stopping you.
Find your local paper’s contact information and requirements
Letters to the editor are usually a few hundred words long but you will want to make sure your local paper doesn’t have any more specific requirements. You can check our list of links to the largest papers Op-ed and Letters to the Editor submissions for reference. Once you know their requirements and contact information you can start writing.
Make it relevant
If you are able to connect your letter to a recently published article you have a much better chance of being published. Look for articles about adult-use/recreational laws, issues with the medical cannabis program, or comparisons to cannabis laws in other states. Any of those will make a great connection to the Medical Cannabis Equity Checklist. If you can’t find a direct connection you can add some context of your own like: “Many people are debating allowing access to cannabis to all adults but it is easy to lose sight of the medical cannabis patients who won’t be served by those laws.”
Make it personal
Make sure you include some information about the issues that medical cannabis patients still experience, your fears about adult-use laws, and what led you personally to advocate for medical cannabis. Without including your whole life story, of course.
Add a critique
Review the Medical Cannabis Equity Checklist and see which of the items you think would improve medical cannabis access in your state and highlight those specific issues.
Add a solution
This is the easy part; just tell folks that there is a list of policies that your state can adopt and they can read them all in the Medical Cannabis Equity Checklist at www.safeaccessnow.org/medicalequity
Give it a snappy title
If you’ve managed to connect your letter to an existing story you can simply use Re: [The name of the article], if not then you’ll need to get a tiny bit more creative. You want something that is fairly short, very direct, and a little confrontational.
- [State]’s new cannabis law will leave medical patients behind
- We need smarter cannabis laws to better serve patients
- [State] should be doing more for medical cannabis patients
And submit your letter
That’s really all there is to it. If your letter is published please let us know at [email protected] and if it isn’t published please keep trying. Your paper will run more cannabis stories and you can keep tweaking your letter. Keep an eye out for how you can connect their coverage to the issues patients are facing and keep pushing a patient perspective.
Sample letter
Protecting patients in a new recreational world
As a medical cannabis patient, I am writing to express my concerns in addressing the challenges faced by medical cannabis patients in the context of potential recreational adult-use legislation in our state. While I recognize the importance of expanding access to cannabis for adult-use purposes, it is crucial that we do not overlook the unique needs and rights of medical cannabis patients.
The evolving landscape of recreational adult-use cannabis programs across the country has revealed significant gaps and shortcomings when it comes to protecting the interests of medical cannabis patients. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the nation's largest medical cannabis patient advocacy group, verified the concerns raised by patients like me in their 2022 State of the States Report. The report highlighted the detrimental impact of merging recreational and medical cannabis programs without sufficient safeguards.
In order to ensure that medical cannabis patients are not left behind or subjected to regressive policies from the emergence of the adult-use market, ASA created the Medical Cannabis Checklist, which provides lawmakers with specific policies to ensure that patients remain protected and prioritized. You can review the report online at www.safeaccessnow.org/medicalequity and use ASA’s template letter to send it to your state representatives.
By integrating these recommendations into recreational adult-use legislation, we can ensure that medical cannabis patients receive the care, access, and protections they deserve. Americans for Safe Access has created a checklist so that we can do this the right way. Let’s make sure we do!
Sincerely,
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