A committee in the United States House of Representatives has given approval to two bills that would address access to medical marijuana and psychedelics for veterans.
The House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee has given approval to legislation that would facilitate research regarding the potential benefits of medical marijuana for veterans, while also addressing veterans access to psychedelics.
Specifically, the committee approved the Veterans Cannabis Analysis, Research, and Effectiveness (CARE) Act, filed by Congressmember Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA). The measure would require the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to “conduct and support research relating to the efficacy and safety of forms of cannabis”.
Miller-Meeks says her bill “proposes research on non-opioid pain relief options for veterans with chronic pain and PTSD”, while noting that “I want to emphasize that this bill is intended solely for research purposes. Gathering more data will enhance our ability to effectively treat our veterans.”
The committee also passed a psychedelics bill proposed by Congressmember Derrick Van Orden (R-WI.
“I’m going to stress that what the veterans administration is doing is not working in preventing veteran suicide,” says Van Orden. “We can quantify that. We have numbers, we have widows, we have widowers, we have kids without parents because they’ve committed suicide as a direct result of their service to our nation.”
He continued; “We’re able to sit here and have this committee in peace because men and women are standing overseas protecting our lives, and we owe it to them. We just owe it to them. And I’ll be honest with you—I’ve said this before—I am not fully sold on the psychedelic things. They are a therapeutic tool, and I’m not completely sold on it. But I’m unwilling to go to another damn funeral because we didn’t try everything we could.”
The bill requires the VA to report to Congress if they place any psychedelic medicines to its formulary.
The report would need to include “the determination of the Secretary whether to include such drug in the formulary of the Department,” and they must describe “the justification of the Secretary for such determination”.
“[Psychedelic] therapies have a huge potential to help us address the mental health and suicide crisis among our veterans, and any VA red tape that delays a formulary decision could cost lives”, said Congressmember Jack Bergman (D-MI), co-chair of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Clinical Treatments (PACT) Caucus, prior to the vote.
