The Veterans Administration, responding to a letter from a Veteran in Virginia, has stated that it's policy regarding medical marijuana is to allow the individual's doctor to decide weather or not to stop a patient's pain medicine when they test positive for marijuana, if the patient is in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. This story as reported in the New York Times, is the first official policy statement to come out of the Veterans Administration in the sixteen years since medical marijuana became law in California.
As remarkable as this bit of news is, this policy is the same as the original policy adopted by the VA back in 2003. I researched the question of what was the justification for stopping a Veteran's pain meds when they test positive for marijuana back in 2008, and was told the doctors were required by law to stop a veteran's medications. I then inquired as to what law required them to do this, I was told that the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act of 1937 required them to do this. I responded to them that the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was declared unconstitutional in 1970 and that the law they wanted was the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. I also told them that nowhere in the 1970 law does it require a VA Doctor to stop a patients meds if they test positive for marijuana. In a letter from the VA dated 11 August 2008, which was a reply to a 20 June 2008 letter I had sent, The VA cited VA/DOD Clinical Practice Guidelines, Opoid Therapy For Chronic Pain Summary dated June 2003, page 13 paragraph M2.1, and page 15, paragraph N2.2, and N2.3. After some research I found the appropriate regulation and it states that pain contracts, urinalysis, and withholding a patients pain medications are not required by the Doctor. The Doctor is only required to 'consider' using these methods if he determines his patient might be having a problem with their medication, he is not required to do anything.
The new policy is virtually the same as the original policy, and as we have always argued, a decision that should be made between a patient and his doctor. There is no doubt of the many benefits of medical marijuana. The question is when will the Federal Government allow our wounded Veterans, those most deserving of every tool we can give them to cope with the horrific injuries they have suffered in the name of the American People, to benefit from medical marijuana as the patients in 14 States are currently allowed to do?