The 4th Annual National Medical Cannabis Unity Conference: A Conference on Harmonization of Global Cannabis Policy and Action, is the largest medical cannabis patient-focused event in the country, and this year’s participants will be pushing the national and global agenda for medical cannabis policy reform forward.
Complimentary press passes are available for press.
What: 4th Annual National Medical Cannabis Unity Conference: A Conference on Harmonization of Global Cannabis Policy and Action
Who: Americans for Safe Access (See AFI list below)
When: Friday, March 18 – Monday March 22, 2016 (Press conference Tuesday March 22, 11:30 United States Capitol Grounds Demonstration Area 10 – click here to view map)
Where: Loews Madison Hotel 1177 15th St NW, Washington, DC 20005
Why: Leading national and international medical cannabis scientists, physicians patients, providers, activists, and medical and legal professionals will convene to discuss the most relevant medical cannabis topics. In addition, hundreds of patients, advocates, and other stakeholders will be meeting with members of Congress on March 22nd in support of the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act. Attendees will also make their mark on history by participating in peer-reviewing a document which will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS 2016) on drug policy which will be held in April.
Cannabis Experts Available for Interview
María de los Angeles Lobos
María de los Angeles Lobos holds a degree in Psychology and has a specialization in dual diagnosis. She is the director of treatment center for problematic drug consumption of Dianova Chile with headquarters in Viña del Mar. Dianova is an international NGO, operates in 11 countries across Europe and the Americas, with programs and projects in the fields of education, youth, addiction prevention and treatment, and in the area of social and community development.
Steve Berg
Steve Berg is the Chief Financial Officer of O.penVAPE. He manages matters relating to finance, business development, investor relations, corporate strategy, PR and advocacy. In addition to more than 22 years of experience in investment banking and finance, and is editor of ArcView Market Research’s The State of Legal Marijuana Markets, Second Edition, the cannabis industry’s leading independent market research report.
Mark Blumenthal
Mark Blumenthal is the Founder and Executive Director of the American Botanical Council (ABC), the leading independent, non-profit organization dedicated to disseminating accurate, reliable, and responsible information on herbs and medicinal plants. He is also Editor/Publisher of HerbalGram, an international, peer-reviewed quarterly journal.
Marcel O. Bonn-Miller
Marcel O. Bonn-Miller, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Bonn-Miller has dedicated his career to understanding the interrelations between cannabis use and PTSD, with the aim of informing intervention and prevention strategies.
Alexander Campbell
Alexander Campbell is an attorney working and living in Massachusetts, and the author of The Medical Marijuana Catch-22: How the Federal Monopoly on Marijuana Research Unfairly Handicaps the Rescheduling Movement, published in 2015.
Stephen B. Corn, MD
Stephen B. Corn, MD is a board certified physician of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts and Professor at Harvard Medical School. He co-founded TheAnswerPage.com, a recognized leader in medical marijuana education and the sole provider of the required “New York State Practitioner Education-Medical Use of Marijuana Course” and the Florida Medical Society required state medical marijuana course.
Sebastien Cotte
Sebastien is the national business director/board member for the Flowering Hope Foundation (a 501c non for profit that provides education and patient support for Haleigh’s Hope products) and he is on the board of advisor for MdHerb, an educational website that focuses on cannabis patients. In his free time, Sebastien is a guest host of the Cannatics political show on Millennium Grown Broadcast Network.
Don Duncan
Don Duncan has served on the Board of Directors since he co-founded American for Safe Access in 2002. As California Director, he is coordinating the grassroots and grasstops campaign to fully implement the state’s medical cannabis laws, respond to federal interference, and build a broader and more powerful coalition for medical cannabis in California.
Tjalling Erkelens
Tjalling Erkelens, CEO Bedrocan BV The Netherlands. In 2003, Bedrocan was awarded the first five-year contract to cultivate medicinal cannabis for distribution through pharmacies in The Netherlands.
Lumir Hanuš
Dr. Lumír Ondřej Hanuš is a Czech analytical chemist and a leading authority in the field of cannabis research. In 1992, he and William Anthony Devane isolated and first described the structure of anandamide, an endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter. Dr. Hanuš is currently a research fellow at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.
John Hudak
John Hudak is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies and Deputy Director at the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on presidential power, bureaucratic process, campaigns and elections. He has written extensively on questions of governance, regulation, and administration with regard to marijuana legalization policy.
Pavel Kubů
Pavel Kubů MD is the expert in the medical informatics and addictology. In December 2015 founded with colleagues International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute and become Chief Executive Officer of research and innovation hub focused on clinical knowledge, services and tools development for implementation in clinical practise of new treatment methods using whole-plant medical cannabis in combination with personalized medicine tools and integrated care methods.
Cynthia Ludwig
Cynthia Ludwig, Director, Technical Services of AOCS, an association that provides technical and scientific resources to the oils, fats, lipids, proteins, surfactants and related industries, and is responsible for all Technical Services activities including methods development, ISO Guide 34 accredited Certified Reference Material Program, laboratory proficiency programs, and AOCS accreditations.
Ryan C. Lynch, PhD
Ryan has broad experience with DNA sequencing and analysis technologies—ranging from microbes to prairie grasses to sunflowers. In 2014 he helped launch a Cannabis genome research project at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Dr. Jahan Marcu, PhD
Dr. Jahan Marcu serves as both Chief Scientist for Americans For Safe Access and Chief Auditor for Patient Focused Certification and serves on multiple government, trade and scientific committees including: AHPA, ACS-CANN, AOCS, AOAC, ASA, IACM, IMCPC, and ICCI. He is proud to have authored the American Herbal Pharmacopeia Cannabis Monograph. Dr. Marcu’s work has focused on the structure and function of
Ian McGregor
Iain McGregor is Professor of Psychopharmacology, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and Director of the Psychopharmacology Laboratory at the University of Sydney. Iain’s research focuses on the effects of recreational drugs and prescription drugs on brain and behavior and also involves development of new medications for the treatment of various diseases.
Pavel Pachta
Dr. Pavel Pachta is an expert in international drug regulation. An economist by education, he lectured at the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic, and then served for more than two decades in various positions in the UN drug control bodies.
Jeffrey C. Raber Ph.D.
Dr. Jeffrey C. Raber Is former President of KinetiChem and is currently on the company’s Board of Directors. Dr. Raber has numerous peer-reviewed publications, including 5 on cannabis chemistry, he has given invited lectures around the world and is also an inventor of multiple patented technologies.
Ethan Russo
Ethan Russo, MD, is a board-certified neurologist, psychopharmacology researcher, and Medical Director of PHYTECS, a biotechnology company researching and developing innovative approaches targeting the human endocannabinoid system (“ECS”). The PHYTECS team pioneered scientific understanding of how the ECS regulates physiological functions including immunity, pain, inflammation, mood, emotion, learning, memory, metabolism, appetite, weight, sleep, embryo development, neuroprotection and stress responses.
Jeanne Sauro
Jeanne Sauro is a Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer patient. Since becoming a cancer patient. She was the first registered student at the first cannabis vocational school in Massachusetts. She become a tenacious and driven Medicinal Cannabis Activist and working with American’s For Safe Access on the national level.
Christine Stenquist
Christine Stenquist is a brain tumor patient turned medical cannabis advocate. She started Drug Policy Project of Utah, a nonprofit dedicated to policy to champion legal access to cannabis in the state of Utah. And is now a founding member of the lobbyist group, TRUCE, Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education.
Steph Sherer
Steph Sherer is founder and Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access. ASA has worked with lawmakers across the country to adopt and improve medical cannabis legislation and regulatory policy in 40 states and the District of Columbia as well as representing patients on Capitol Hill. Steph has also become the foremost international leader and expert on medical cannabis patient advocacy and, alongside American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), has created the first industry standards in the areas of Distribution, Cultivation, Analytics, and Manufacturing, Packaging and Labeling. In addition, she has recently co-founded the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute in the Czech Republic.
Dustin Sulak
Dr. Dustin Sulak is an integrative medicine physician with expertise in osteopathy, mind-body medicine, and medical cannabis. His clinical practice focuses on treating refractory conditions in adults and children with an individualized, health-centered approach.
Boaz Wachtel
Boaz Wachtel is an Initiator (1995-2013) and co-strategist with Israel’s Ministry of Health (MOH) of Israel’s Medical Cannabis program that currently includes over 11,000 patients served by eight specialist physicians authorized to issue licenses and eight licensed cultivators. A researcher on addiction, harm reduction, and cannabis, he has published more than two dozen articles, papers, and book chapters.
Grace Wallack
Grace Wallack is a Senior Research Assistant at the Center for Effective Public Management at The Brookings Institution and Associate Editor of the FixGov blog. She works on regulatory policy,presidential and congressional elections, and institutional effectiveness. She is the co-author, with John Hudak, of the report, “Ending the U.S. government’s war on medical marijuana research.” She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Georgetown University.
Melissa Wilcox
Melissa Wilcox is a Global Marketing Manager for Grace Discovery Sciences. Melissa is also a co-founder and Counselor for the American Chemical Society (ACS) Cannabis Chemistry subdivision (CANN) and a member of the American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) and American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) cannabis expert panels. She is part of a collaborative research team working to develop better analytical methods for cannabis products to ensure patient safety, focusing on sample preparation of edible products with complex matrices.
Jane Wilson
Jane Wilson is the Director of Program Development for the American Herbal Products Association (APHA) where her duties include working with the AHPA management team to develop, implement, and manage AHPA programs and services. She brings to this role many years of experience developing cooperative relationships with representatives of industry, trade associations, public health officials, regulatory bodies, advocacy groups, and other stakeholders.
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Source: With over 100,000 active members in all 50 states, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is the largest national member-based organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. ASA works to overcome political and legal barriers by creating policies that improve access to medical cannabis for patients and researchers through legislation, education, litigation, grassroots actions, advocacy and services for patients and caregivers.
