Legalizing Medical Marijuana for Veterans

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the front page of last Sunday's Washington Post had a poignant story about Army veteran Amy Rising, who uses medical marijuana to help her deal with her posttraumatic stress disorder. Now, we weren't told exactly where she lives, just that medical marijuana is legal where she uses it, so she could be in any one of 23 States and the District of Columbia.

Fifty-seven percent of Floridians voted to legalize medical marijuana earlier this month, more votes for medical marijuana in Florida than any statewide politician on the ballot. This is part of a growing trend across the country.

But Amy's predicament is that the Federal Government does not allow physicians in the Department of Veterans Affairs to be able to help their patients with medical marijuana, whether it is right for them; instead, people are forced away from their primary care physician and the veterans' benefits that they have earned.

Why do they have to seek out someone else who doesn't know them as well, doesn't have the same relationship, and then bear that extra cost? This actually should be a terrible embarrassment.

I had a proposal during the appropriations deliberations that would have clarified this policy, which actually isn't based on any law or regulation. It is simply what is termed "guidance.'' My proposal would have enabled doctors to be able to work with their patients in the VA.

Now, I am not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination the nature of those conversations and what the conclusion should be. Some physicians are strongly supportive of medical marijuana. Others have reservations. Others simply don't know. But it is outrageous that the people who know our veterans best are forbidden to work with them on this therapy.

I will be introducing legislation that would put in law what we had for that budget amendment. This is one of several things that I hope this Congress does something about before we adjourn.

While we are at it, shouldn't we want to stop the lunacy of making marijuana an all-cash business by denying them bank accounts? What about giving people tax justice by repealing an outmoded and unfair provision known as 280E, so that it will allow perfectly legal businesses, hundreds of them across the country, to deduct their legitimate business expenses? Otherwise, these hundreds of small legal businesses will continue to pay punitively high tax rates.

Now, the Obama administration is slowly lurching in the right direction. The President famously said that he had bigger fish to fry than trying to prevent Washington and Colorado from implementing what their voters have approved. Just this last week, we had more approvals from the State of Alaska, the District of Columbia, and in my home State of Oregon. Marijuana got more votes in Oregon than anybody on the Oregon ballot.

While States are still influencing the reform, we need to bring Federal policies out of the Dark Ages. We need to be able to harness the therapeutic power of marijuana. We shouldn't force, for example, families to have to move to another State to be able to get relief for their children who suffer from torturous, violent epileptic seizures, simply because they live in a nonmedical marijuana State when medical marijuana has proven to be one of the few areas of relief for these children.

While the States are moving in this direction, the public is moving in this direction, it is not too late for Congress to move with these small steps that will make a difference.

We should start with our veterans, to give them access to their doctors, to understand what this tool is, to see if it can provide relief for them as it has done for hundreds of thousands of other people, especially veterans with chronic pain and PTSD.

Make no mistake, this is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue; it is a veterans' issue. It is allowing the public to be able to take advantage of the proven therapeutic value, as over a million Americans are able to do today.

It is past time the Federal Government makes its policies consistent in the States in which our veterans reside. Give them this right, allow them access to the therapy, give them access to their own doctors.

Here is an opportunity for Congress to catch up with the voters, to catch up with the developments in therapy, catch up with veterans' advocates, and do something far less risky and more beneficial than what is too often inflicted upon them.

States have been showing leadership on marijuana reform and hemp legislation. Now is the chance for Congress to make progress, especially for our veterans.

Source