Every medical field has some sort of professional society, from pediatricians to gerontologists, they enjoy and benefit from collaborating or otherwise networking with their peers. So, it only makes sense that canna-doctors also have their own societies. Three to be exact, though the rivalries amount to rooting for each other, really.
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According to MedScape, They’ve emerged over the last 15 years as state after state has legalized some form of cannabis, be it CBD, medicinal or recreational. There’s the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine, the Society of Cannabis Clinicians and the American Medical Marijuana Physicians Association.
Out of the three, SCC has been around the longest, created in 2004 by the California Research Medical Group, which itself was formed by the late Tod Mikuriya, coauthor of Proposition 215, the seminal ballot measure that legalized medical marijuana in California and set the stage for the nation to follow suit.
Any and every kind of doctor, nurse, homeopathic physician or other type of practitioner allowed to recommend medical marijuana in their respective states can joined one of the three groups. This is one group of doctors that, no matter how varied, all have a few common goals: to organize medical marijuana, to further legitimize the medical cannabis field, to spread knowledge about the plant, and in that vein, see cannabis rescheduled so that it can be researched more thoroughly in clinical settings.
Right now, despite 29 states and the District of Columbia having legalized it in one form or another, cannabis stands as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it is not yet recognized as having any medicinal value and is recognized for having a high potential for abuse. Schedule II, though still a rating that yet carries the high potential for abuse stigma, would at least remove the “no medicinal value” part of the equation to take away at least that one roadblock from further studying cannabis and its effects on different ailments.
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SCC has around 350 members and offers them certification courses for continuing medical education credits in addition to quarterly online meetings. Doctors also provide case reports for other doctors to read, from how they administered cannabis to a cancer patient to how it was used with an epileptic child.
All in all, the organizations seem to bring the cannabis industry another few steps closer to affecting greater change and further legitimizing an industry that once rose out of the wild west to rear its beautiful green head. Now is the time to tame the beast
