Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Baldwin-Brown, thank you for your service.
Doctors, thank you for being here. One of the reasons we started this study was that in the past three and half years, we've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence from our veterans who have come here and talked about the challenges they've had. We've listened to them and to their families about their coming back and using cannabis versus the opioids they were on. We've heard from the parents and from the families about how they got back their spouse, for instance, or whatever it may be.
That's one of the ideas here. There's a lot of stuff. Obviously, it's very new. It's new for us just like it's new for you. That's a big challenge. Here we're dealing with and asking for guidelines and standards, which are two different things. They're based on research, but you don't have the research to provide those guidelines and standards, so it makes it very difficult for you to make that decision.
Dr. Ayonrinde, you mentioned the three Ps, the patient, the physician and the plant. I think that's a very good way to look at it.
I want to focus on the physician part of it. As you mentioned, we're dealing with a situation where we have medical schools that are teaching our doctors based on these guidelines and standards that are out there, and we don't have guidelines and standards for our physicians to make these decisions. What's the appropriate dose? What's the appropriate strength? Should it be smoked or should it be ingested, and so on?
We're asking to make this happen because our veterans are suffering today. How do we bridge that gap to make certain that we provide the service for our veterans that we might need to provide them but at the same time collect the information that will take years to get?
Dr. Ayonrinde, perhaps you could comment on that.