Mark OPM 71 Form Made Easy

Mark opm 71 form

hi everybody thank you so much for joining us today um my name is debbie churgai i'm the executive director of asa uh we have a great webinar for you today um we are excited to share the highlights with you of asa's work during this challenging year and we're going to be covering federal and state advocacy policy reform and asa educational program we are um today we're going to quickly go over some accomplishments from 2020 then we will dive into an overview of some of our state and federal advocacy work review some of the state and national changes in cannabis policy and what the incoming administration could mean for patients and we are going to follow this all up with a q a segment at the end so make sure to get your questions ready you can um you can put it in the chat segment or if you want to post a question anonymously on the bottom of your um screen there should be a little button that says q a and if you post it then that will just go to the presenters to see feel free to ask any questions during the presentation uh during the chat or the q a and we'll get to those at the end okay we're going to get started um first i want to tell you a little bit about americans for safe access for anyone that isn't familiar with us we are the oldest and largest national organization of patients medical professionals scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research we were created in 2002 by steph scheer who is now the president of the board and she will be speaking later in the presentation and beyond going ongoing direct federal state and local advocacy efforts to improve medical cannabis policy for patients we have also done an extensive amount of work on education and training for government the licensed industry and physicians and we'll talk a little bit about that today asa has been leading the way for patients and researchers on cannabis policy reforms for nearly 20 years in the last 18 years americans for safe access has hosted 15 annual lobby days in congress and hundreds of lobby days across state capitols and local governments we've scheduled more than 2 600 face-to-face meetings with congressional offices to lobby legislators on medical cannabis laws we've mobilized our 150 000 supporters on the ground to call and email federal and state legislators on medical cannabis related bills and regulations we've written countless publications that we offer for free on our website to help educate patients doctors researchers covering everything from our 2020 state of the states report patient's guide to cbd and how to talk to your doctor about using medical cannabis we've published almost 1 million legal manuals over 2 million know your rights wallet cards hundreds of thousands of training manuals legal advocacy industry and patient education and countless special reports and other materials and as i mentioned all of these resources and much more are available on our website safeaccessnow.org for free so let's talk a little bit about 2020 well 2020 shut a lot of the country and state governments down uh the public health crisis was a call to action for asa in 2020 we immediately engage state governments urging them to declare cannabis businesses essential to ensure safe and legal access could continue resulting in 33 states making that declaration to facilitate access we worked with a coalition of partners to secure house passage of the more act safe banking act and medical marijuana research act we worked directly with congressman lou correa to secure language from the va medicinal cannabis research act into the more act prior to passage we partnered with the cannabis enigma podcast to provide content for a bi-monthly podcast series to amplify the discussion about issues critical to patients we updated our travel guide to include the new states and to help patients learn about reciprocity laws in other states and we encourage voters to get out to vote during the election season through our vote medical marijuana campaign campaign sorry we worked with our coalition partners to secure a yes vote from the u.s delegation to the united nations to remove cannabis from schedule four of the controlled substances act in accordance with the recommendations of the world health organization we collaborated with state and local partners to do everything from submit testimony to state regulators in arkansas to advising the commonwealth of virginia and working to protect patients ability to smoke cannabis in their apartments in san francisco so that's a little bit of the work we've done we're going to talk more about that in the presentation but as you can see while 2020 was a tough year for many it didn't stop us from doing the work that we needed to do we increased the number of digital education and training events covering pediatric to veteran access and the performance of state medical programs in 2020 we participated in important national events like the national canvas policy summit and mj biz and in response to the covid pandemic our pfc certification program rapidly developed and deployed a training curriculum focused on safety and hygiene this course was initially offered as free to anyone through our webinar we now have it on our pfc platform for a small fee if you're interested that's pfccertification.org um i'm going to move this over to andrew but before he begins talking i do want to say one thing about the covid crisis when the covet crisis hit the united states our first priority was about patients and their access to this medicine so while many organized organizations were you know stressing and wondering how to stay afloat which we were too we continued to work not even knowing if we were gonna have to shut our own selves down um due to lack of funding but we we we continued to work everyone on staff continued to work in order to make sure that patients across the country had continued access to this medicine and i want to say a thank you to everyone on the asa staff it was a difficult time and it still is a difficult time for many but because our priority is patience we really wanted to we we knew we had to do something to help them and andrew is going to talk a little bit more about our work that we did thank you debbie so on march 15th asa held an emergency meeting with stakeholders and put together a plan of eight recommendations to ensure access for patients the next day we coordinated with governor's offices and state medical regulators across the country to urge them to maintain safe and legal access for patients during the pandemic 28 states declared businesses essential and 33 states actually organized temporary enhancements to their cannabis programs that improved access and reduced costs to patients among these included 11 states that allowed for delivery or partial delivery well 15 states already had delivery programs 16 states allowed for telehealth and 17 allowed every step of the registration process meaning from your doctor's recommendation to actually getting your card 26 states allowed for curbside picked up statewide and california allowed in some jurisdictions uh these dramatic program improvements demonstrate how much can be done for patients directly by state regulators it also underlines the value of ace's advocacy and the power of the voice of patients in educating and collaborating with state regulators asa offered free memberships for essential employees and businesses cannabis businesses that were declared essential so the 2020 edition of asa's state of the states report is the sixth edition of this annual performance review of state medical cannabis programs this year's report covered the great work of state regulators and working quickly to keep cannabis businesses open to serve patients during covid as we mentioned a minute ago if you haven't checked it out yet it is an incredible resource illustrating the growth of state programs to better serve patients and a guide for state governments on outstanding issues and key concerns raised by patients with these programs while state programs are improving most programs maintain ongoing challenges in key areas ranging from patient rights and civil protections like employment school access for pediatric patients or even dui penalties for using prescribed medicine to insufficient access and the unaffordability of illegal of legal cannabis medicine asa not only reviews state programs and consults with patients on their effectiveness but we also work directly with patients doctors and state lawmakers to improve programs performance the report is free to download and is available on asa's website along with the webinar and the blog covering the report you can see the link there in the slide so a lot of 2020 led a lot of legislation happened in 2020 um one is the medical marijuana research act which was approved by the house last wednesday the bill would allow researchers studying the effects of cannabis to use cannabis grown by professional cultivators in state medical cannabis programs rather than the research grade cannabis supplied by naidec and grown by the university of mississipp mississippi uh the week prior uh the house also passed the moore act legislation to deschedule cannabis from the federal controlled substances act tax cannabis and organized cannabis related criminal records expungement and cannabis job training programs asa also worked with congressman lou guerrero's office to secure language from the va medical cannabis research act into the bill which would direct the department of veterans affairs to conduct clinical trials on the effectiveness of cannabis in treating conditions ranging from chronic pain to ptsd in a surprise move the senate voted on tuesday of this week to approve the cannabidiol research and expansion act well while passage of these bills is encouraging and demonstrates the momentum of cannabis as a policy issue the senate has no plans to consider uh the bills i previously mentioned this session and with the session drawing to a close all of these bills will have to be reintroduced to the 117th congress when they are inaugurated in january they'll be considered dead otherwise [Music] so uh this this year we all know was a record year for voter turnout um we had cannabis on the boat across five states um support for cannabis tracked with public polling done by pew and gallup um they've done for support of cannabis um we saw about two-thirds of voters backing adult use initiatives while the margins on the initiatives involving medical cannabis for closer to seventy percent um so this is this is now uh what our country looks like as far as legalization goes the blue are all states with medical cannabis legalized are two states in orange there are the two new states where medical cannabis has been legalized that's south dakota and mississippi and the oran and the yellow states are the cannabidiol only or low thc programs there are 4.4 million patients now across the country with 35 states and dc and all the overseas territories having a medical cannabis programs um so on the topic of these uh state ballot ballot initiatives four adult use initiatives passed in arizona with about 60 percent of voters in montana with a with just under 60 at 57 there new jersey voters approved adult use question 1 with 67.1 percent of the vote um south dakota residents also approved the adult use amendment a with 53.4 percent of the vote again we saw two medical cannabis initiatives and support for them was generally much higher in south dakota there they voted on both and 16 higher support for medical cannabis versus the adult use so even in a deep red state like south dakota and mississippi we're seeing um pretty strong support with 71 74 there in mississippi um so we also saw a congressional election democrats lost 10 seats well republicans gain 14 by filling some vacancies alongside flipping seats the democrats maintained the majority of the house and voted to keep nancy pelosi as the speaker democratic leadership remains widely unopposed to cannabis reform many were co-sponsors on the safe banking act or the more act or the veterans cannabis or excuse me the medical cannabis research bill we also saw passed unfortunately we still don't know about the senate control will ultimately be decided by the runoff election in georgia as it stands republicans maintain 50 seats with the democrats at 48 and mcconnell remains the senate majority leader um while schumer remains a minority leader but those those positions would flip um if the democrats were to win both senate races uh so as far as the leadership goes in the house excuse me this is the senate we still have mitch mcconnell on top as mentioned uh john throne as a majority whip or minority whip if that changes um john barrasso as the conference chair policy committee chair roy blunt uh joni erst uh saying of the conference vice chair um this the assistant democratic leader will be patty murray um well the senate democratic chairwoman um excuse me i will be debbie stavenow um vice chair of the conference elizabeth warren also vice chair mark warner the steering committee amy klobuchauer chair of outreach bernie sanders joe manchin will be communications committee and secretary of the conference tammy baldwin dnc chair chris van hollen so really aside from uh joe manchin on the democrat side a pretty uniformly pro-cannabis lineup there um and then looking forward to the house i'm gonna go through these a little more quickly um pelosi remains speaker with steny hoyer um the majority leader we have clivern as the whip all of them are unopposed to cannabis as well as largely the democratic leadership as well we all saw them vote in favor of the moore act excuse me um so incoming president biden's campaign released their approach to federal cannabis policy in july of this year recommending cannabis decriminalization expungement of past cannabis criminal convictions and rescheduling cannabis to a lower schedule than schedule one of the controlled substances act and continuing to let states set their own policies on adult use cannabis so kamal harris the incoming vice president was a the sponsor of the moore act in in the senate um and she's been generally pro-cannabis throughout her senate career [Music] um so we can also expect some key appointments uh in the in the coming weeks uh among the biden harris administration um you know really what what we're looking at is uh attorney general they're looking like they're gonna look uh point to doug jones uh we're waiting on hhs treasury and secretary of commerce picks those will all be probably what are most important to cannabis patients um and now i'm gonna turn things over to uh steph uh you there steph i am can you hear me i can here you go great um hello everyone um happy almost end of 2020. um thanks thanks andrew for the presentation and debbie um you guys have been doing amazing work in this crazy time so i'm going to talk a little bit about what a biden harris administration means um and of course um you know where there's a potential that there will be a safe banking act that's that's put into the cobit relief for 2021 we're still waiting to see that there may be um some items added to the to the budget um that we'll be uh looking for as well um i think you know it's it's definitely very remarkable that um in this election cycle that um you know the national support for cannabis was so strong that biden who has traditionally been very anti-cannabis um felt that he needed to come out favorably for cannabis uh to be able to win this election and so you know looking at back to what uh promises uh biden and terrorists made during uh the during their campaign there's some things that they can do and there's things that they cannot do so for instance the um they can't by themselves reschedule cannabis they can call on hhs to make better recommendations they can call on dea to make recommendations or potentially create a new schedule that canvas could fit in but they can't just sign something and say canvas is now no longer schedule one but there are some pretty exciting things that that they can do and this is where i'm sure we're going to be calling on on all of our members to reach out to the administration but some of those include um you know the the potus you know the office of potus can um which is the president of the united states potus can make a judgment that hud can't kick people out simply for medical cannabis use um and as you guys know we have lots of patients that are in section 8 housing and many people who um you know could be patients but but can't risk losing their home um and so i've had to make that choice between their home and their health uh you know through uh opm uh they can actually uh biden can get rid of drug testing for cannabis you know i think a lot of people in dc we all know opm because we check to see if the offices are going to be open for snow days but the office also sets all the personnel um standards so biden absolutely can tell the opm director to stop testing for cannabis and this of course would affect millions of americans who you know again have to choose between their employment and um and their their health and obviously i think that if the federal government makes that move uh it'll signal uh to the private sector which uh 65 of the private sector still drug tests for cannabis again leaving millions of americans who could benefit from from medical cannabis um out of that the fighting administration can also push the veterans administration to allow doctors to recommend cannabis um and i think really we're looking at what are some of the you know um policies that are more sort of uh less substantial but of course um we're expecting that um biden will also um you know signal for the uh you know a a new issuance of a coal memo that's something definitely the department of justice he can do through his oversight of the department of justice um they can say that cannabis could be the lowest priority uh for arrest for department of justice signaling to u.s attorneys um you know to not bring those um those cases forward um but he cannot by himself decriminalize cannabis that would have to be an act of congress but again he can set priorities for the administration um the same is true you know of of other administrative agencies and um as far as um being able to expunge records i believe he would have to create a new law and we're still looking at that um we're hopeful that that's something that um that the office of the president can do but but we're not certain but i also want to you know remind everyone how excited we were when obama was elected and in the first days of that administration we were all so excited to hear eric holder say that he was going to uphold obama's election promises to stop the raids and following that we we saw the ogden memo and the coal memo but for those of you who lived through that time we know that there were actually more raids under the under the obama administration than the bush and clinton combined and because congress really felt like obama through his actions the department of justice had really dealt with all of the issues of cannabis it took us three and a half years to get congress to introduce legislation again even even the legislation um like the you know the amendment to the department of justice that would stop uh the dea from raiding uh and you know we had had we'd introduced that bill every year for almost a decade before obama and you know again congress just felt like there was nothing for them to do and obviously um you know this next session congress is going to have a lot on their plates right they're going to have to be dealing with covid we're going to be dealing with the economy and so i just want to remind people of that time um and know that we can't let off our pressure you know we've got to keep pressuring congress we've got to keep um you know keep this issue in front of the administration um because you know there's there's great they're going to be working on a lot um and then the other thing i just want to remind people of and this is especially towards the medical cannabis industry is that at the end of the obama administration we were starting to see quite a few fines for the industry from osha and fda and epa and usda and under the trump administration he actually didn't fill a lot of the jobs in those administrative agencies so you know we didn't see a lot of activity um you know from those agencies but i'm expecting under a um a democrat uh administration that we're going to see robust federal agencies and so this is just a reminder to the cannabis industry uh to make sure that they're following all employment laws that they're um that the health and safety of their employees are you know are well documented um you know that they're not putting mislabeling their products that they're not using pesticides you know all of these items that maybe they slipped when they weren't being watched under under the trump administration and so that so i i feel like the outlook for biden harris is you know there's there there are a lot of things that biden can do um we're gonna have to keep the pressure on to make sure that those happen and uh we're going to have to keep the pressure up with congress to remind them that there are still millions of americans that do not have access to medical cannabis so um huge news uh in case you you didn't hear um we rescheduled cannabis um at the un level um and for people who have been members of of americans for safe access for a while you'll know that rescheduling medical cannabis was actually a part of our strategic plan that we created in 2002 the reason that it was on our strategic plan was that uh back in 2000 well starting in 1996 through 2002 before asa started um the attorney general of the united states barry mccaffrey and um later asa hutchinson and sorry ashcroft and then dea asa hutchinson they would all cite the u.n single treaty and the us's role in that treaty as the reason we could not move forward with medical cannabis and so um we put rescheduling cannabis at the un level and and into our work plan and you know to be honest i am a little surprised that we changed that policy before we did in the united states um but in a way it's pretty fitting since it was the united states that um that actually pushed cannabis prohibition globally it was ann slinger who uh made cannabis illegal in the united states for very racist reasons and he pushed that racism uh to the un and across the globe so if you guys don't remember um you know the the scheduling um of cannabis at the un level was based on a report um that was put out before the world health organization even existed back in 1934 and that was the last scientific document that the un had looked at to schedule cannabis and so we began uh pressuring the world health organization to do a new critical review of cannabis and we were able to get the international narcotics control board to pass a um to pass a resolution calling on the world health organization to do a new critical review we were able to get the committee on narcotic drugs um at the un level uh to request the who do a critical review and still they weren't doing it and then um if you guys remember a few years ago at um the asa conference uh we all actually participated in reviewing a updated version of the critical review which we handed in to the who and to the committee on narcotic drugs and a few years later the who finally um issued a new review and in that review it was actually a little better actually even than our own recommendations and said that that cannabis absolutely had medical value and that the scheduling should reflect that and what is exciting about the scheduling the change in scheduling at the un level is that the 1960 and 71 drug policies that we signed on to actually most people think of them as drug control but these these treaties were are about access and control and so by the committee on narcotic drugs recognizing the medical use of cannabis means that all of the countries that have signed on to the u.n single treaties they actually have a mandate now to create access to medical cannabis and so this is a an exciting uh change and an exciting um you know opportunity for medical cannabis advocates all over the world to now uh be able to go to their governments and have conversations about medical cannabis so in the same way that uh the dea and the attorney general's offices here in the united states you know told advocates and um and the states that the reason we couldn't change federal law was because of medical cannabis um is uh you know the same um is the same reason the same um uh issues that that that people have dealt with in in other countries um you know across the world and so what this means for people who live in countries where they have to follow um u.n single treaties obviously united states we we sort of pick and choose um which which treaties we are part of uh for instance we still have a death penalty um uh we're one of only eight countries and so um but the kind but many countries uh they they can't really step outside of these these policies uh for various reasons and so for patients who are in you know these these other countries they now have an opportunity to go to their federal governments and and talk about medical cannabis so this is um really you know 2020 was a very hard year for for the for the globe um but this is definitely a shining light and something that is going to affect patients um all over the world so thank you all all of our members who have been working on this with us um over nearly two decades and you know congratulations and congratulations to um to our members of imcpc the international medical cannabis patients coalition which include patient organizations like americans for safe access in almost 60 countries that have been working with their governments to make sure that this this very important vote happened and then the the last thing i want to talk about um are our uh priorities for 2021's because as andrew mentioned you know there are um we've been able to pass a lot of different pieces of legislation you know through one house or the other and you know um at americans for safe access we're very proud um to have you know to have passed the um uh the hinchey rohrbacher amendment i'm sorry it was later called many many other amendments but the amendment to the department of justice to stop the raids um and that was something that we'd worked on for years and of course um senator mikulski from maryland finally brought that across for us um but you know sin that wasn't really legislation creating a pathway for medical cannabis that was really um you know just a policy to to take uh patients and their providers sort of out of out of the the conflict out of a war um but it means that we've just been sort of sitting here uh without a comprehensive program and so while we are very grateful to um our champions and senate and congress that have been you know sort of biting off pieces of this issue um we think that it's time now that we have now that we have a majority of the states that have medical cannabis laws uh to uh introduce uh legislation that would uh ultimately make medical cannabis available for everyone and so we see that happening in in um in introducing comprehensive legislation that would basically do two things one it would create a new schedule for cannabis so we don't think that descheduling will happen um but we don't think that cannabis belongs in schedule two either and so we're actually suggesting a new schedule that maybe some of the other plant medicines could go into and the second thing would be an office of medical cannabis control and you know through imcpc americans for safe access we've been working with countries around the world to pass federal legislation there are now more than 40 countries that have federal medical cannabis programs and all of those programs have a office of medical cannabis that can oversee the distribution cultivation and manufacturing of cannabis and the reason this is is important is that i think we've all seen through the hemp bill the farming the farming act bill the hemp provision that called on fda to oversee cbd is it is that it doesn't quite fit cannabis doesn't quite fit into the parameters of fda and of what we have traditionally thought of drug development and so by creating an office of medical cannabis we're recognizing the special properties of medical cannabis but still making sure that all of the other federal agencies that look out for the health and safety of of americans can participate in that process and so uh what we're suggesting isn't that we just throw out all of the amazing work that we've done at the state level uh we're actually talking about really building on that work and still of course including the states in a huge way to make sure that they're part of the the licensing of the cultivation and the manufacturing um but that it shouldn't matter uh where you are in the united states so you should be able to use their your medicine and so just remind people if we had a federal comprehensive uh program this would mean that you could travel anywhere you wouldn't have to worry about um visiting your family um obviously after cobit but you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not you could get your medicine um you know if you have if you're in one state and you're using a medicine that works you don't have to worry about moving to another state and not being able to find that medication it means it will probably see lower prices for cannabis because there can be interstate commerce so manufacturers from one area can can sell that product in another but what we see is again not sort of starting from scratch but really seeing you know the the current licenses that states have given for cultivation and manufacturing of medical cannabis they've gone through an amazing process right they've done amazing security protocols and background checks the people who have these licenses have really done an amazing job to get them and so instead of having them start over we would see and the cultivators and manufacturers actually grandfathered into the dea cannabis and cannabis manufacturing and cultivation licenses that exist you know that we you know that right now there's only one of them uh given out uh to the university of mississippi uh but basically anyone in the united states that had a medical cannabis uh license to cultivate in manufacturing would automatically have that dea license and again that would allow them to be able to utilize their products and research they would be able to move those products um from state to state and then you know if you look at dispensaries so again instead of forcing a new license any any person that had a dispensary license they would automatically get what is called a specialty pharmacy license which is a federally recognized license and we've gone through every agency and looked at how they would participate and how we could move you know move forward with federal legislation in a way that won't interrupt the current access we have but we'll make sure that those patients and indiana and iowa and places where we haven't been able to to to pass legislation that they too can have can have access to medical cannabis and of course if we pass comprehensive legislation then things like banking issues and taxation issues those would be taken care of because medical cannabis would be a federally recognized product the businesses that serve medical cannabis patients would be legal and so instead of trying to do sort of one offer or are really just sort of policy procedures like the cole memo at the dea and doj cannabis would be legal and would be um you know traded both internationally and um at the interstate level just like like any other commodity and so we're going to need your help next year to pass this we think that um it's time and um you know again we've done a lot of work to make sure that uh the work that we've been doing at the state and local level um you know won't disappear that'll be incorporated and really be a part of the the knowledge base that we bring to federal policy um but it's but it's also time to stop looking at just sort of one-off um pieces and at this point um with 35 states uh with medical cannabis laws uh and um d.c and the and the other territories uh you know we think it's time uh to really look at a comprehensive approach that recognizes the medical use of cannabis and will finally move us into a stage where patients and doctors can use cannabis as a frontline treatment and patients don't have to choose between employment and their health they don't have to choose between their housing and their health and yeah i know that we can that we can do this but again there's a lot going on in the next session so everyone is going to really need to come out and you know be a part of the action alerts call your members of congress whatever emails you get from aces staff they're going to send you in the right direction and so i think that's um that those are my presentations unless i left something out debbie no [Laughter] um now we are going to um go move into the q a portion so if we kind of rush by anything if you want us to go back to any of the slides please let us know but before we do that i just want to say um you know patient engagement is critical um and as one of our slides mentioned the patient uh a number has increased by almost a million and a half in a year a million and a half in in one year which is amazing and our work with grassroot networks and coalition partners will continue um at the state level in 2021 first to maintain coveted reforms and prioritize patient policy concerns and to work with our asa state chapters and partners to support their ongoing legislative and regulatory advocacy priorities um as as the patient counts continue to rise the urgency for states to make reforms is only increasing and we cannot do this work without you so we really encourage you if you're not already an asa member to sign up for asa membership it is only 35 a year and we have special discounts for students and veterans and also we will be hosting a members only meeting webinar in early january 2021 so if you want to be a part of that please um sign up as soon as possible um and we really do thank you we we honestly cannot do this work without the support of our members um so thank you so much for that folks about the um about the um membership program for um those amazing employees at dispensaries that are um making sure that our patients have access yeah we had that slide somewhere i'm not sure what happened to it but um you know after covid one of one of the things that we did is to thank everyone maybe we did talk about this but to thank everyone um for working during that time risking their own lives we did offer free membership to essential workers and free business membership to those businesses that remained open during covid um so that is still available for any essential businesses and and employees out there to sign up for free and that is a thank you from us to you yeah so any of our members they can you can let your um your local dispensary know um that um as a thank you for staying open that there's a free membership for the business and and of course all of their employees yes for for everyone that works there um so we're going to move into the q a portion and we also have dustin mcdonald uh he had a little uh issues earlier but he is on uh he is our interim policy director we have steph myself andrew um we already have a few questions and please continue to ask away jeffrey do you want to um lead us with our first question i would love to um so one thing that came up very timely is yesterday we had the senate bus s2032 um so can you fill us in on what's going on with that what our next steps on that just catch us up for sure dustin i'm happy to jump in and answer that one and anyone else feel free to jump in also last night was a little bit of surprise for kind of everybody in the advocacy space in dc of course last week we saw the house pass by voice vote earl blooming hours h.r 37 97 which is a similar how a similar version to the senate bill that was approved last night 2032. um ace is reaching out and is making contact with with the sponsors of those offices who worked on the bill and introduced the bill and that's senator feinstein um shatson grassley and they're actually holding a call on friday to talk through next steps on the legislation obviously from our perspective we would love to see the bill reconciled with blooming hours h.r 3797 and the bill get to the president's desk in some way before the end of session ideally through the cover relief package and on that front we're just reading the tea leaves here this is all speculation but congress is likely to need to pass another continuing resolution giving themselves a little bit more time to finish work before the end of the year so there is some wiggle room here to play with and then we'll learn a little bit more friday about exactly what the plan is going to be all right um anyone have anything to add to that i feel like that was all covered i'm i guess justin will probably be putting on a blog about that for people to follow up correct definitely yeah as soon as soon as we get more scoop on friday we'll definitely be back in touch with folks and let them know what's coming down the road what they can expect towards the end of this session and any opportunities for engagement all right um we also had a question about what effect if the binding administration uh or the legislator uh made a move for towards rescheduling or descheduling what kind of impact would that have on existing cannabis programs there's a lot to be figured out on that front i think when you take a look at federal approaches to the scheduling so far legislatively we saw the more act of course move through the house this year and receive a vote very recently this month and was passed across a pass through the house that legislation is the only legislation that's moved through that entertains the notion of descheduling but descheduling by itself simply removes federal prohibitions related to cannabis protection use and sale and associated research but doesn't really force regulators to do anything with respect to cannabis to advance research to organize and implement policies through the administration that deal with a lot of the the very much intricate and necessary work that steph described through the office of medical cannabis control so while descheduling would essentially remove all federal prohibitions on all the things that we wanted to with respect to cannabis it doesn't actually require federal agencies or departments to do anything and that is what we believe is the true value of omcc in that legislative proposal is that it establishes an office that would essentially function as a clearinghouse for medical cannabis and help guide other federal departments and agencies who might have competing agendas related to cannabis policy reforms at the federal level and really kind of ensure that the medical component of it in particular stays on the track so that research can be advanced and patients can be served insurance can be extended everything that patients really need and have been asking for for a long time on the federal level you know i would just add to that dustin that if if cannabis is um descheduled if it's taken off the scheduling um uh you're correct that yes that you know as far as the the doj is concerned it would be out of that arena but in in order for it to move into that substance cannabis to move into research it would have to be put in a schedule it's just the way medicines work and so um it's the way dietary supplements work so all of these work that would actually end up coming back into a schedule and that's why we think it's so important that we're a part of deciding that and and creating that comprehensive legislation all right we had another question that i thought was interesting um we have uh a uh advocate expat who's in germany now and uh wondering how they can be involved in uh advocating in their new country um so we can talk about germany but more more generally also just in other countries i could take this one um so we mentioned earlier that ace has got tons of free resources up on our website and i'd say that's that's where you should start read read your laws try to use your country's cannabis program and find the weaknesses find where patients are losing out on access have trouble getting it and highlight those produce resources like asa does you can you know you can go on our website and check out check out ours copy them for germany we do have an advocates training center on our website which has a ton of free resources because one of the main priorities is asa is to teach other people how to advocate so i think that's a great question um i know some of them might because of uh german laws might be different but definitely use those resources that we have and um hopefully they'll they'll be helpful to you i would just also say you know um the law in germany is pretty exciting um there's actually insurance coverage so um educating patients and doctors um you know the cannabis is available that it is a treatment um that that they can utilize it's you know it's it's a pretty exciting place to be a patient advocate actually uh because you get to focus on um on the benefits and the use um rather than than uh just trying to explain that that it's even a possibility all right um something we touched on at the beginning was uh the sort of state responses to kovid um that we organized uh around our our recommendations to governors um those uh some of those accommodations for covid have been very beneficial for patients uh and so i was hoping you could touch on what we can do to make sure that those stick around for sure yeah i think that's something that asa will definitely be talking about in our members only webinar that debbie mentioned that we're going to run in early january as we talk about our legislative regulatory priorities for the coming year will include state level priorities as well and the biggest one to your point jeff and whoever brought that question to us is just that we saw states make improvements and reforms to medical cannabis programs that patients have been clamoring for for years and i thought it was interesting to take a look at this year where you had five statewide ballot initiatives approved authorizing everything from adult use to medical access you know these are ballot initiatives that really are kind of constraining you know once a ballot initiative goes through it's certainly very exciting for new rights and and responsibilities associated with cannabis possession use and sale for patients and consumers alike however um those initiatives are often very difficult to change in the legislature they usually require a two-thirds majority to change here we see in 20 in 2020 under kobit regulators step in to impose many of the reforms that people typically drive through ballot initiatives um and so ace will absol absolutely be working with our state chapter leads with our coalition partners in states with state regulators and with state lawmakers to try to hold on to those those improvements again we saw everything from improved access via curbside pickup and delivery being authorized delivery being a critical component strongly for patients in covet and before and after covid everything that was done to try to reduce cost to patients and improve the affordability of being a cannabis patient while we still lack insurance things like states allowing ongoing enrollment in state programs not requiring patients to renew their enrollment annually as they are now to try to help save patients some money and allowing patients to interface with their doctors for a recommendation utilizing telehealth instead of having to go to an office visit so a lot of great features in there and absolutely asa will be working with our state chapters with our grassroots volunteers with our coalition partners to drive to maintain those in 2021 and beyond and i want to say a lot of those issues versus we were already advocating on the telehealth the delivery i think everything but curbside yeah everything right now though the temporary regulations were things that were needed anyways and those were things that we were advocating on we were always advocating to make your state programs better and those are some examples of some of the things that we were we were and will continue to advocate on to make sure that they remain because i know a lot of patients have come to us worried about um will they take these these uh these options away after covet and we will work hard to make sure that doesn't happen because we know patients need them okay and debbie before we end i i just got to see the attendees list which i didn't see before and there's so many people on this call that i just adore and have been asa members for so long so um i just wanted to take a second and say so good as well i'm not really seeing you but it's good to see your names and thank you all for for the work you've been doing over the years and um i'm you know i'm very honored that um americans for safe access has been able to keep focused and accomplish um the many of the goals that that we've set forward and of course we still have a lot of work to do uh but just seeing your names reminds me you know how far we've come and you know that we're we're now turn to corner where we're not just that we're not fighting with police um all the time um and instead we're we're dictating policy and and looking at how to move forward and um you know and we're doing that with police uh it's a very different time uh very you know even even um a politician like president biden who was so anti-cannabis you know that he has to come out and be in favor of it it's truly a testament to the work that all of you um have done so if i don't uh uh see you um or hear from you before have a great holiday season and um you know i think 2021 is probably going to be pretty weird too but as we can see um uh from from what we were able to accomplish in 2020 um asa members won't let a little thing like that um hold us back and then i also just want to say asa staff you guys have been amazing um i'm so grateful and you know always just honored to to work with you all and and you know i definitely sleep better at night knowing that uh you all are looking out for all of us patients so thank you so much thank you that was that was really nice and um yeah if we if we if you guys have any questions that we haven't answered already i know there's probably a few more i don't know if you want to stay on for a minute or two but if but you can reach out to dustin and andrew anytime it's dustin at safeaccessnow.org andrew at safeaccessnow.org um we are happy to work with you and and help you with your needs and we want to hear about your needs and i also do want to give a quick shout out to our annual sponsors and supporters every year we have we don't have a lot of companies that support us but we do have some great some great companies that support us every year um dr bronner's southern california coalition canasafe tacoma wellness basa 3c cannabis comprehensive cannabis consulting bpg a2la cv sciences newly new leaf botanics farm strong joy organics humboldt's finest new cannabis adventure and true pharma thank you so much for supporting us this last year when really we needed it the most and we really appreciate you all we appreciate all of our members and supporters and we hope that you will stick with us in 2021 because cannabis um um is not inevitable legalization is not inevitable it's only going to happen through organizations like asa that we continue advocating and changing minds and educating patients and educating medical officials educating politicians and we cannot do that work without you all so thank you so much for joining us today and supporting us and we look forward to talking with you more in 2021 thanks everyone bye