Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having me appear before the committee.
For those who don't know, I was the director of marijuana coordination under Governor Hickenlooper in Colorado for the rollout of what we referred to as medical and recreational marijuana. I have since started a firm that works primarily directly for government and also ancillary businesses; however, we do not take money from the marijuana industry or cannabis industry as that would be in tension with...a conflict with our other work.
I'm obviously not a public health expert nor a veteran, and what I hope to speak to you about today—and maybe it's most appropriate that I'm coming last—is really the unfortunate policy tension that has arisen as a result of federal and really worldwide prohibition on cannabis research.
What you're dealing with is one of the more sympathetic communities, along with children with intractable epilepsy, who have really suffered from the lack of efficacy research at the top levels of government for what cannabis can do for PTSD.
That lack of research over a period of time, with anecdotal evidence that this was being helpful, has turned this policy debate from what would normally be for any other substance a guilty-until-proven-innocent model into an innocent-until-proven-guilty model of dealing with the substance in such a way that we are going to assume benefits under anecdotes and smaller research faster than we would for a different substance.
I'm not suggesting that is the wrong approach to take here. I'm simply stating that is what has happened because of this worldwide prohibition on the sort of research that would be needed here.
That community is clearly tired of waiting for traditional institutions to catch up, and over time, there has been more and more of a push for right to access and use, hopefully with financial reimbursement and with physician oversight.
However, research is direly needed in this space, in my opinion, most clearly for drug-to-drug interactions, especially for people who might be in a PTSD situation and already are on a certain drug. Research is also needed on side effects, such as liver toxicity, and on specific formulations for drug efficacy: What is working? Why is it working? How can we research that?
The tension that is arising here is that, while some of this may be done with public research money, in particular in Canada more than in the United States, you can make great strides forward with public research and rigorous work through people like Dr. MacKillop. There will be a need to continue to have a path towards profitability for companies, for pharmaceutical companies, to continue to incentivize research in this area and continue to really put in what is going to be more billions of dollars—rather than even hundreds of millions of dollars—to prove that it is safe but also to find the most efficacious formulas.
The mission that I believe is in front of this committee today is to figure out a way to provide access to these communities that have been waiting for long periods of time to have access to it while continuing to provide incentives for research moving forward and really thinking about the long-term research prospects for providing effective safe medicines to these communities.
I think this will be a particularly difficult goal considering adult use legalization is coming online as well. As mentioned before, that will lead to self-medication in the marketplace. Nevertheless, I do think that you will have to consider the path forward of how you provide access, and how you provide continuing incentives to research in this area.
With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.