A congressional committee is meeting on Thursday, with members set to take up a series of bills including two GOP-led veterans-focused measures concerning medical marijuana and psychedelics. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is supporting the cannabis legislation if it undergoes “extensive amendments,” and it opposes the psychedelics measure, describing it as “unnecessary.”
The House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee—which made history last November by holding a first-ever congressional hearing focused on psychedelics-assisted therapy for veterans—will also hear from a number of veterans service organizations (VSOs) that are advocating for the reforms.
One of the bills that’s on the agenda, sponsored by the subcommittee chair Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), is titled the Veterans Cannabis Analysis, Research, and Effectiveness (CARE) Act.
It would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to “conduct and support research relating to the efficacy and safety of forms of cannabis” for chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and “other conditions the Secretary determines appropriate.”
The legislation specifies that the VA studies must involve plants and extracts, at least three varieties of cannabis with different concentrations of THC and CBD and “varying methods of cannabis delivery, including topical application, combustable and non-combustable inhalation, and ingestion.”
VA would first have to
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