Thank you.
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. It's my pleasure to highlight my experience in helping veterans in a medical and professional setting as it relates to cannabis.
First, it is important for you to know that I am not a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces or a member of a first responder organization. I am not a health care professional. I am an entrepreneur with a pharmaceutical and start-up technology background who realized that there was a serious issue with the way Canadians were accessing medical cannabis, and I wanted to do something about it.
I saw an opportunity to change the narrative around medical cannabis and also fill in some of the gaps that exist for soldiers exiting the military. I started an organization called Trauma Healing Centers over four years ago, which is not to be confused with an organization called Marijuana for Trauma.
In the 3.5 years under my leadership, we have helped 7,500 patients. Approximately 900 of them were veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces. Approximately 90% of the 7,500 patients who were referred to Trauma Healing Centers had already tried cannabis, and it happened to work for their condition or conditions. They didn't know how it worked or why it worked, but it provided the symptom relief that they desperately needed and the therapy significantly increased their quality of life.
Trauma Health Centers' approach is via multidisciplinary care. I have physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, dietitians, massage therapists and peer-support advisers all under one roof to help our patients. Patients have come to us via other physicians, either a GP or specialist referral.
For those who are not aware, medical cannabis is a last-resort treatment option. When all indicated medications and therapies have been exhausted, medical cannabis can be tried. As physicians would say, this is where the art of medicine comes into play.
Medical cannabis is not a silver bullet. It must be managed in a medical and professional way to ensure that positive outcomes are achieved. When positive outcomes are not achieved, physicians must discontinue the patient's cannabis authorization like they would any other medication. The vast majority of our patients were able to reduce or discontinue their existing pharmaceutical regimen when cannabis was helping to improve their symptoms.
I will be the first to say that there is no strong evidence for medical cannabis use in any medical condition, and that large-scale randomized clinical trials need to be conducted to ensure maximum benefit can be achieved with minimal risk. However, the lack of evidence is not proof of the lack of benefit. The key is managing the treatment in a medical and professional way in order to maximize the potential benefits and minimize the potential risks.
Unfortunately, there are many physicians in Canada who are authorizing medical cannabis in a risky manner. They are often not adhering to a start-low, go-slow approach. Some are authorizing medical cannabis with little or no knowledge of how cannabis works and are leaving patients to self-treat, which is really no different from patients buying off the street. Helping patients become—quote—“legal” is not the objective; helping them achieve symptom relief and improve quality of life should be the objective.
I am fortunate to have had many amazing physicians work for me over 3.5 years at Trauma Healing Centers. Most were GPs with experience in pain management and addictions. Some had occupational health experience and worked with their provincial workers compensation boards. Two were specialists—psychiatry and pain management—and two were veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces.
We were able to gain trust and to partner with many organizations that are tremendous advocates for the well-being of veterans. Wounded Warriors Canada, VETS Canada, MFRC, and the Royal Canadian Legion are just a few that have come to understand and believe in our approach.
I was also able to gain the trust of the director of policy for Veterans Affairs who was responsible for the medical cannabis file. My medical director and I supported the capped reimbursement to three grams per day, the need for special authorization beyond three grams per day and the inclusion of oil reimbursement.
I have spoken to hundreds of veterans and their families who have explained how cannabis has greatly improved their medical condition or conditions, and enhanced their quality of life. I have met with many of the highest-ranking officials in the military who care about the well-being of their members and former members.
I met with Surgeon General Downes at the 2017 CIMVHR conference and explained our approach and the results we were seeing. My team and I met with General Vance, with the intention of making him aware of what we are doing to ensure that his veterans suffering from chronic conditions, like PTSD and pain, are getting help via a multidisciplinary care approach.
We also made three simple recommendations that we felt could have a profound impact on the outcomes for veterans who struggle with medical conditions leaving the military.
We recommended that Canadian Armed Forces members who were exiting the military with pensionable conditions should access multidisciplinary care off base prior to being discharged so that they may continue with their care regimen uninterrupted and not have to wait for benefits to kick in via Veterans Affairs Canada to access care.
We recommended that all military members discharged with pensionable conditions be assigned a peer support adviser several months prior to their discharge date to ensure they had the support of someone on their level who had been through the process and could help guide them.
We recommended that the Operation Family Doc pilot program in Ottawa be expanded to other parts of the country to ensure that medically discharging members have a continuity of primary case services.
In closing, I strongly feel that much more can be done to improve the outcomes of veterans utilizing a multidisciplinary care approach and coordinated care. I also strongly believe that medical cannabis can be utilized as part of this approach.
Thank you for your attention.