GOP Congressman Files Bill To Let Military Veterans Get Medical Marijuana Recommendations From Government Doctors
A GOP congressman has reintroduced a invoice geared toward offering army veterans with entry to medical marijuana.
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Hashish Caucus, filed the Veterans Equal Entry Act final week—the most recent try to enact the measure that’s loved bipartisan help over current periods however has but to grow to be regulation.
The invoice would enable authorities docs on the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs (VA) to suggest medical marijuana to their sufferers in states the place it’s authorized. They division wouldn’t present hashish, nonetheless, and veterans would use these suggestions to entry it beneath current state-legal dispensaries.
The veterans reform proposal, which mirrors committee-approved variations from previous years, has additionally beforehand been pursued by the appropriations course of as an modification.
The Veterans Equal Entry Act is a concise bill that supporters say would supply a modest however significant reform for the veteran neighborhood.
VA docs are presently allowed to debate medical hashish with sufferers, however they’re not particularly licensed to problem suggestions, even in states which have legalized the plant for medical or leisure use.
The Congressional Price range Workplace performed a fiscal evaluation of an earlier model of the invoice in 2020, discovering that it will not value the federal government something to implement.
Mast’s invoice is the second piece of standalone hashish laws to be filed within the 119th Congress. The primary, sponsored by Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), seeks to guard army veterans from dropping authorities advantages for utilizing medical hashish in compliance with state regulation.
That measure would additionally codify that U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs (VA) docs are allowed to debate the potential dangers and advantages of marijuana with their sufferers.
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In the meantime, advocates and stakeholders are awaiting the reintroduction of one other bipartisan proposal that might defend banks from being penalized by federal regulars merely for working with state-legal hashish companies.
The GOP Home sponsor of the Safe and Truthful Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act will likely be submitting it once more this yr, however a spokesperson for his workplace instructed Marijuana Second final month that the introduction is “not imminent” as some current reviews have recommended.
Two Republican senators individually launched a invoice this month that might proceed to dam marijuana companies from taking federal tax deductions beneath Inside Income Service (IRS) code 280E—even when it’s finally rescheduled.
Photograph courtesy of Philip Steffan.
