Veterans Affairs committee  Some of my patients will actually have reactions to the carrier oils or the process by which it's been made into oil. Different companies have different carrier oils. Sometimes they're actually reacting to the carrier oil that the cannabis oil is in, not the cannabis itself. It

Veterans Affairs committee  You have to remember that just until recently, not too far back you would be court-martialled for using cannabis within the military. That ethos still remains in the higher-ups who have been there—

Veterans Affairs committee  Civilian doctors aren't prescribing. Most of them will punt to a doctor, “Go see a clinic that will prescribe for you.” Those doctors are in short supply.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm telling you what I'm facing right now. I'm doing the two-year renewal letters for my veterans who are on six, eight or 10 grams. The thing that I have them on the phone right now is, “Am I going to get approved? If I'm not approved, how long am I going to have to wait between

Veterans Affairs committee  I have a veteran here behind me, Scott Atkinson, who wanted me to bring that up. When he went to Bellwood treatment centre, he was not allowed to have cannabis. He wanted to go back at a later point to just... You know, you can relapse and you need to hone your skills. He was g

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and still....

Veterans Affairs committee  Worse than that, there are veterans being discharged by their OSI doctors for not taking pharmaceutical medications, and they are not able to access...other doctors will refuse to treat them.

Veterans Affairs committee  I agree with what you were saying, and I remember looking at the data of that. From the veterans perspectives and from what I'm hearing from the mouth of the veterans is that, since they have started cannabis, many of them no longer think about suicide. When they were on the pill

Veterans Affairs committee  I agree with what you're saying about bias. My approach to medical cannabis from the beginning has been the old approach of medicine: sit down and listen to your patient. There's no reason why doctors can't start with that and monitor patients closely. The veterans have taught me

Veterans Affairs committee  Legalization has not helped consistency of treatment for our veterans; it has hindered it. Since legalization in October, many veterans have not been able to access the oils and the strains they need. The Canadian government did not put in place protective measures to ensure that

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely; it was because of supply. Suddenly licensed producers had an opportunity to make money with recreational, and you're looking at the same pot of cannabis. Not only that; in terms of governmental people who look at the standard of cannabis, the government didn't hi

Veterans Affairs committee  On the alcohol issue, it's back to basic neuroscience. A lot of the veterans were self-medicating with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant that allows you to sleep. My veterans who overnight were taken from seven, eight or 10 grams down to three had to revert to alcohol at times, be

Veterans Affairs committee  It really depends on where the brain is at and if there has been brain trauma on top of the PTSD or mefloquine on board. Some brains will do very well with sativa at night because it reorganizes their brain. That's a frontal lobe injury aspect. Whereas sativa is traditionally to

Veterans Affairs committee  There is no training. It's not only here but in countries around the world. Doctors are very resistant to incorporating it.

Veterans Affairs committee  To even begin to have access to that level of expertise, you would have to go through some of the clinics that are helping veterans. It's not through the OSI clinics. It's not through the VAC workers. The expertise is sorely lacking. I've given up three nights a week for two year