ASA Activist Newsletter
In the August 2021 Issue:
- ASA Submits Comments on Cannabis to White House
- ASA Releases Summary of Senate Bill Details
- PFC Launches New State Training
- Confronting the Challenges of Adult Use Law
- ASA Webinar on Cannabis and Cancer
- ASA’s Upcoming In-Person Events
- Activist Profile: Deb McCauley, Sarasota, Florida
- Action Alert: Share Your Perspective with ASA
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ASA Submits Comments on Cannabis to White House
On August 6, ASA responded to the
White House’s request for comments on how federal drug control policy
has disproportionately harmed some communities. ASA’s
response to the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP)explained why medical cannabis is a social equity issue and
provided substantial recommendations on how to protect patients and
harmonize federal and state laws.
“ASA appreciates the opportunity to address how federal policies
and agencies punish patients for using medicine that is legal across
37 states,” said ASA Executive Director Debbie Churgai. “We hope the
ONDCP will recognize patients’ rights and needs are central to
reforming federal policy and quickly adopt the suggestions we’ve
offered as the nation’s largest patient-centered medical cannabis
organization.”
ASA’s comments to the ONDCP covered reforming federal policy on
cannabis medicine, the affordability of cannabis medicine, and the
need to include stakeholders to improve state and local equity
programs.
For more details, see ASA’s press release at www.safeaccessnow.org/asa_submits_comments_to_white_house2021.
The full comments can be read here.
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ASA Releases Summary of Senate Bill Details
ASA’s detailed
summary of the proposed Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act
(CAOA) is online at www.safeaccessnow.org/caoa_summary.
The imminent U.S. Senate bill promises to be the most wide-reaching
and important cannabis legislation ever considered by Congress.
The bill has not yet been introduced, but Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden
(D-OR) have released a
proposed outline and requested comments on it from the public and
stakeholder organizations such as ASA.
ASA has reviewed and summarized the 163-page “discussion draft” for
its potential impacts on safe access for patients on the ASA blog,
including decriminalization of cannabis, public safety and states’
rights; research, training and prevention; restorative justice and
opportunity; and taxation and establishment of a trust fund.
“This bill represents the most comprehensive approach to federal
cannabis policy reform yet contemplated by federal lawmakers,” said
ASA Executive Director Debbie Churgai. “Yet we believe there is more
work that can be done to protect patients and will submit additional
recommendations to the senators.
If enacted as outlined, the CAOA would deschedule cannabis, leaving
most regulatory decisions to states. Social justice provisions include
expunging criminal records for low-level cannabis offences and
establishing an equity-focused job training program.
The deadline for comment is September 1, 2021. The bill is likely
to be introduced later this fall.
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PFC Releases New Illinois State Training
ASA’s PFC program has recently launched a new training platform to
host all of our training videos, exams, and learning guides. This new
website offers more functionality than the old system, particularly
for businesses that are enrolled as each may assign an administrator
who can monitor their employee's progress with training and download
training certificates as needed.
PFC has also expanded its state compliance training courses with a
new one Illinois. The Illinois course is designed to meet all of the
requirements of the state’s Responsible Vendor Program, for which PFC
has submitted an application.
Illinois requirements include training on:
- US state and federal cannabis laws
- Checking identification
- Verifying patient status
- Packaging and labeling
- Security requirements.
PFC will also be launching updates to its National Cannabis
Standards Training courses for Manufacturing, Dispensary, and
Laboratory Operations in the next month. An updated NCST course for
Cultivation and Processing Operations and is already available on the
PFC website either a la carte or as part of PFC’s Staff Training
bundle.
More information is available at patientfocusedcertification.org/training.
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Confronting the Challenges of Adult-Use Laws
In many states, when adult-use cannabis laws are adopted, medical
cannabis programs are left by the wayside, to the detriment of
patients. ASA’s latest recommendations on the emerging adult use laws
in the US are covered on ASA’s
blog.
“As states implement and update laws on adult-use, it is imperative
that they continue to prioritize policies that support patients,” said
ASA Executive Director Debbie Churgai. “ASA will continue to work with
lawmakers and regulators to ensure patient needs are not forgotten or
ignored.”
ASA’s blog details how changes in state cannabis programs have made
access for patients comparatively harder and more cumbersome. The
areas of concern include:
- Patient Rights and Civil Protections
- Access to Medicine
- Affordability
- Pediatric Patients
- Ease of Navigation & Functionality
- Consumer Safety & Provider Requirements
More information is at www.safeaccessnow.org/adult_use_blog.
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ASA Webinar on Cannabis and Cancer
Last month, ASA hosted a free webinar
in collaboration with Holistic Caring on how cannabis therapeutics can
help people living with cancer thrive.
The webinar featured the stories of Jessica and Rick, two patients
living with cancer, and discussion with the founder of Holistic
Caring, Elizabeth Mack, RN, and ASA Executive Director Debbie
Churgai.
Discussion covers how to approach cancer with cannabis as a tool to
better manage conventional treatment side effects, the pre-clinical
research on cannabinoids as anti-tumor agents with the potential to
heal, and how to find wholeness in body-mind-spirit from cannabinoids
to boost nutrition, movement, and connection.
The recorded webinar is now available to view free online at www.safeaccessnow.org/cancer21_video.
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ASA’s Upcoming In-Person Events
Events featuring ASA staff are scheduled for the next two months in
New York, Washington DC, Baltimore and Las Vegas.
More
information and registration options for some of the events are at the
links below:
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National
Cannabis Festival- August 28 - Washington, DC. ASA Executive
Director Debbie Churgai will be introducing Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John
Fetterman, a champion of safe access and candidate for the US Senate,
on the main stage at 6:30 pm. Stop by ASA’s booth to say hello, grab a
shirt, and catch up on ASA’s latest projects.
-
White
Label Expo- Sept 1-2, Las Vegas. ASA is partnering with White
Label World Expo for their 2021 conferences. ASA Executive Director
Debbie Churgai is a keynote speaker at this event. ASA supporters can
get in free by getting tickets through the link on ASA’s
Events page.
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Cannabis
Science Conference - Sept 13-15, Baltimore, MD. This is the
world's largest and fastest growing cannabis science event with
analytical, medical, cultivation and hemp science tracks. ASA
Executive Director Debbie Churgai will be presenting at this event,
and ASA supporters can attend the conference for 50% off by using the
discount code ASA50 to purchase tickets..
-
White
Label Expo- Sept 30 - Oct 1 - New York. ASA supporters can get in
free by getting tickets through the link on ASA’s
Events page.
-
MJBiz
Associations Day- Oct 19 - Las Vegas. This event brings cannabis
non-profit advocacy and association groups into the spotlight, ASA
supporters get a discount by registering using discount
code AD2021ASA.
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Activist Profile: Deb McCauley, Sarasota, Florida
Deb McCauley had been a medical
professional for more than two decades, and had juggled her own
seizure medications for nearly as long, when a friend approached her
in the summer of 2018 with an alternative she’d not considered.
“Cannabis can really help,” Deb’s friend told her – with sleep,
pain and her peri-menopausal problems.
A former Air Force combat medic from a military family, cannabis
had not been part of Deb’s experience.
“’Just say no’ was my life,” Deb says. “But I was just so tired, I
was willing to try anything, even though it was illegal then in
Virginia.”
As it turns out, her friend was right. It helped with all her
conditions, and that gave Deb pause.
“Well, wait… Why does this work so well?” Deb remembers wondering.
“It got my nursing brain working.”
After her epilepsy-related discharge from the Air Force, Deb had
moved to northern Virginia, where she met her husband, with whom she
had two sons, now ages 9 and 11. She worked in acute care and every
aspect of hospitalization over the years that followed but retired
from bedside nursing due to burnout and physical injury.
At the point where she discovered cannabis could help with all her
maladies, Deb was finishing her undergraduate degree and considering
graduate nursing programs. She turned to researching cannabis and its
mechanisms of action. She found the Cannabis Nurses Network and the
Cannabis Nurses Association. And she connected with Virginia NORML,
which became her first network of allies.
“My knowledge as medical professional was sought after,” Deb says.
“They wanted my clout.”
In January 2019, she attended the
Virginia NORML lobby day and discovered she could make a difference.
It was intoxicating.
“That advocacy, talking with those legislators everyone is afraid
of -- it was amazing,” Deb says. “They just wanted to listen, and they
definitely wanted to listen to me, because I was a medical
professional. I know for a fact Tim Hugo, my
representative, changed his vote on the MORE Act after that
visit.”
Her confidence in confronting lawmakers was bolstered by her prior
success negotiating her cannabis use with her doctors. She knew her
neurologist not just as a patient but a nurse from working in the same
hospital, so she brought him scientific articles and asked is he knew
we have an endocannabinoid system. (He didn’t.)
“This is part of my passion--we need education!” Deb says. “He
couldn’t fully endorse it because it was still illegal then, but he
was really supportive.”
Together, they made a plan for tapering off the prescription drugs
she took to control her epilepsy.
“I was off all my pharmaceutical medications by fall 2018,” Deb
says. “It really helps with my focus, and I was doing so much better
with school.”
That success gave her confidence to talk to lawmakers, and it
convinced her to change her path in nursing. She decided to become a
nurse practitioner (NP) so she could treat and educate patients
directly. There was just one catch.
She had to pass a drug test to enroll in the program.
Secretly, she stopped using cannabis and started reintroducing the
pharmaceutical medications. Within 10 days, her husband confronted
her.
“You’re acting stupid,” she remembers him saying. “What did you
do?”
She had not realized the cognitive side effects of the medications
were obvious, or even the extent of them. The conversation with her
husband made it clear the trade off was not worth it. So instead of an
NP program, Deb is now in law school at Florida State University,
pursuing a Juris Masters with focus on health care regulation.
“I want to understand laws and how to change them,” Deb says. “I
know the intricacies of our bodily systems; I’d like to know the
intricacies of the legal system.”
Her experience with cannabis has been profound. She’s been able to
maintain her health and even lost 50 pounds. But it is the advocacy
work she finds most compelling, something she realized on Capitol
Hill, when she sat in the audience as members of Congress heard
testimony on the MORE Act.
“I got bit by the advocacy bug at the Virginia Lobby Day, but
sitting in on the first Judiciary Committee hearing -- that was
amazing,” Deb says. “The adrenaline came back, like being an EMT. It
was an invigorating day.”
Today, Deb is working with the Cannabis Nurses Network as the lead
for their political action and advocacy group. Their current project
is creating model legislation for a nurses protection act for
municipal, state and federal lawmakers that would, among other things,
remove pre-employment cannabis screening. She has also recently
contracted with Relias
to write a course for nurses.
“It’s been remarkable how I’ve been able to reengineer my nursing
career and still benefit my community,” says Deborah. “It’s also shown
me I have to be better in my self-care. I can’t take care of others if
I can’t advocate and care for my most important patient—myself. That’s
the nugget of advice I like to leave with everyone.”
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Action Alert: Share Your Perspective with ASA
Each year ASA requests feedback from patients and caregivers to
help shape ASA’s annual State
of the States report. Your participation in this short survey will
help us produce quality analysis and potentially change laws or
regulations to better serve the needs of patients.
Complete the quick survey today at www.safeaccessnow.org/sos21_survey
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