By Leigh Vinocur, The Baltimore Sun on December 26, 2022

This month President Biden signed into law the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, and it’s a good first start. But as a board-certified emergency physician working directly with medical cannabis patients in Maryland since our medical cannabis law passed, I know we need to do more.

First, the bill still does not allow research to be done on the cannabis products that almost 5.5 million patients are using legally in their state programs today. For the last quarter century, states have had to individually pass medical cannabis laws to help their citizens. This fragmented approach, with each state having their own regulations and no federal oversight or guidance, creates a lack of standardization in product quality, safety, accessibility and affordability, as well as some patients having no access at all. This puts the onus on patients to self-educate, while they circumnavigate their therapeutic treatments. This is despite the fact that, 76% of doctors, 93% of Americans and 83% of veterans support the legal medical use of cannabis.

– Read the entire article at The Baltimore Sun.