The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released an updated directive that reaffirms its doctors are prohibited from issuing medical cannabis recommendations to their military veterans patients. The new document also notes the revised federal definition of marijuana that went into effect with the legalization of hemp.
The revised Veterans Health Administration (VHA) guidance is largely consistent with a previous version it released in 2017, which itself was updated to explicitly encourage VA doctors to discuss veterans’ marijuana use. That policy technically expired at the end of 2022, but without an update the 2017 guidance stayed in place until last Friday, when the new version was issued.
Advocates and lawmakers have continually pushed VA to make changes allowing its doctors to fill out forms recommending medical cannabis to veterans who live in legal states, but the department has long resisted that change—and the revised VHA directive makes clear that “VA health care providers are prohibited from recommending, making referrals to, completing forms or registering Veterans for participation in a State-approved marijuana program.”
The House recently approved a bipartisan amendment to a spending bill that would allow VA doctors to recommend medical cannabis to military veterans. The Senate Appropriations Committee
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