The American Legion — the nation’s largest veterans organization with more than 2 million members — is urging the U.S. government to reclassify marijuana.
Dr. Sue Sisley, a cannabis researcher who is studying the benefits of cannabis for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder, said the American Legion’s support is a major development for vets.
“I consider this a major breakthrough for such a conservative veterans organization,” she said. “Suddenly the American Legion has a tangible policy statement on cannabis that will allow them to lobby and add this to their core legislative agenda. The organization has a massive amount of influence at all levels.”
Sisley spoke in favor of rescheduling marijuana during the American Legion’s annual convention last week in Cincinnati.
“I only heard very positive feedback from the thousands of veterans in the audience,” she told Marijuana.com. “I was stunned at how little controversy there was. It seems highly unanimous among American Legion members that we owe it to the veteran community to demand end to the barriers to this kind of cannabis research. In light of the epidemic of veteran suicide, the Legion knows they must strive to uncover new treatments for PTSD/opioid epidemic, etc.”
Dr. Sisley received federal permission two years ago to research marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. Not long after this rare opportunity to conduct studies using cannabis, Sisley was fired by the University of Arizona, where she had hoped to do the work.
Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration refused to remove cannabis from its Schedule I classification — meaning the herb has “no accepted medical use.”
To read the American Legion’s official resolution and more on this story, read here.
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