Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise today to discuss this bipartisan amendment to ensure that veterans have access to every tool possible when it comes to healing from both the visible and the invisible wounds of war and service. That could be trouble sleeping. It could be physical pain. It could be some disease that you get from something you were exposed to in war, a cancer that you contracted. It could be an addiction. It could just be finding peace in your life. That tool that we are specifically speaking about today is cannabis. My proposed amendment, I believe, is common sense. It allows doctors in the VA, those who deal with veterans, to give advice to their veteran patients. That seems simple enough, but under the status quo, VA doctors are limited in essential treatment options that they can offer to their patients, treatments that patients who are not veterans can readily access in many States. This amendment would allow doctors to discuss cannabis as a treatment option with their patients. It would allow doctors to help those patients fill out paperwork that authorizes medical use of cannabis. It would allow those doctors to help weigh cannabis when choosing whether other medical options may be the best fit for that individual veteran. When I woke up in Walter Reed Army Medical Center after being injured in Afghanistan, I was on a laundry list of medications. It was a shock to me.…”