Gov Christie’s Opioid Commission Denies Americans for Safe Access

Weed-hating Governor Chris Christie chaired a meeting last week to discuss the opioid crisis before submitting their final report to the President by November first. Christie’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, entitled their third meeting: Innovative Pain Management and Prevention Measures for Diversion. And guess what? Mr. Christie and his Commission didn’t include anything about the only medicine that could actually curb this crisis—cannabis.
The agenda, which was not released until the day it was scheduled, included testimony from 10 invited organizations, all of which were from the pharmaceutical industry.

James N. Campbell, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer | Centrexion Therapeutics
Christian Kopfli, CEO | Chromocell Corporation
David M. Stack, CEO and Chairman | Pacira Pharmaceuticals
Mike Derkacz, President and CEO | Braeburn Pharmaceuticals
George M. Savage, M.D., Chief Medical Officer | Proteus Digital Health
Corey McCann, Founder and CEO | Pear Therapeutics
Richard Pops, CEO | Alkermes
Ponni Subbiah, M.D., Chief Medical Officer | Indivior
Roger Crystal, M.D., CEO | Opiant Pharmaceuticals
Kristen Gullo, Senior Director | US World Meds

According to Steph Sherer, the founder and executive director of Americans for Safe Access, “the tone of the meeting came off as a commercial by each of the companies asking for government assistance in getting their medications to market more quickly.”

Steph Sherer attended the meeting and fought to be on the agenda, but was told hells to the no. Sherer stated in his article titled, ‘Medical cannabis can help reduce our nation’s pain epidemic’

“Americans for Safe Access, the country’s largest patient-focused medical cannabis advocacy organization, requested to be included in today’s meeting to provide testimony, but was denied a seat at the table. “

Apparently, there was only enough room for big pharma to discuss how the government can help expedite getting their non-addictive pain medications to market faster.

Chris Christie’s Commission is so far off base it’s hard to take anything that comes from their meetings and conferences with any sort of seriousness. The commission is completely disregarding the science and anecdotal evidence which proves marijuana can safely be used to combat pain.

Don’t they watch Dr. Oz? The answer is no, no they don’t watch Dr. Oz who has recently talked about how marijuana can help ease the opioid epidemic. And according to their actions they don’t care about the people addicted either. It is completely inhumane to keep medicine from the sick and dying. 91 people are going to die today from an opioid related overdose, 0 people will die from a marijuana overdose. Chris Christie should be more than ashamed of himself and the job he is doing.