Veterans Voice Support for House Hearing on Cannabis Bills to Address Health Crisis
/Cannabis Bills “Could Literally Save Veterans' Lives"
On Tuesday, April 30, 2019, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on a suite of veterans’ cannabis bills. The legislative hearing included H.R. 712, the “VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2019”; H.R 2333, “Support for Suicide Prevention Coordinators Act”; draft bills on the “Whole Veteran Act” and “Veterans’ Care Quality Transparency Act”; H.R. 2340, “FIGHT Veteran Suicides Act”; H.R. 1647, the “Veterans Equal Access Act”; H.R. 2191, “Veterans Cannabis Use for Safe Healing Act”, and H.R. 100, the “Veteran Overmedication and Suicide Prevention Act of 2019.”
Veterans Cannabis Project Executive Director Doug Distaso released the following statement in support of the hearing:
“President Trump and Congress could literally save veterans’ lives by enacting these bills into law. With the opioid overdose and suicide crisis hitting our veterans, they deserve legal access to medical cannabis through their VA doctors as a safer alternative to the highly addictive and often deadly opioids and other pills the VA readily gives them.
“These bills would provide the kind of research, legal access through VA doctors, and protection of earned benefits that veterans overwhelmingly want and deserve.”
An American Legion survey of veteran households found that 82 percent want to have cannabis as a federally-legal treatment, and 92 percent support research into medical cannabis. Survey shows veteran households support research of medical cannabis
A survey conducted by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) found “83% of IAVA members agree cannabis should be legal for medical purposes” and 90 percent of IAVA members support researching cannabis for medicinal purposes. 2019 IAVA Survey
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2019 // CONTACT: David White - [email protected]