Medical Marijuana Workshop
Space is limited—Register for the workshop here.
Monday, 22 April 2013, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
This workshop is located in the Spinnaker Room II at the Waterfront Hotel, 10 Washington Street, Oakland, CA. The hotel is about a 12 minute walk from the Oakland Marriott. There is a free Broadway Shuttle that runs between hotels from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
Prominent experts will share the lessons they have learned about marijuana research methodology (such as dosing, self-titration, placebo doses, and outcome measures), discuss the differing effects of the two primary cannabinoids THC and CBD, examine the forces impeding government approval of medical marijuana research, explore the history of the medical marijuana movement in California from 1996 to the present, and discuss future possibilities for research. The implications of new data on the use of cannabis as a substitute for alcohol, illicit, and prescription drugs for the clinical application of medical marijuana will also be discussed.
Donald I. Abrams, M.D. is chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division at San Francisco General Hospital and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He has an Integrative Oncology consultation practice at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Brown University in 1972 and graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1977. He was one of the first clinicians to recognize and define many early AIDS-related conditions. He has long been interested in clinical trials of complementary and alternative medicine interventions for HIV/AIDS and cancer, including evaluations of medicinal marijuana, as first inspired by Rick Doblin in 1992. In 1997 he received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct clinical trials of the short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection. Subsequently he was granted funds by the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research to continue studies of the effectiveness of cannabis in a number of clinical conditions. He completed a placebo-controlled study of smoked cannabis in patients with painful HIV-related peripheral neuropathy as well as a study evaluating vaporization as a smokeless delivery system for medicinal. His last NIDA-funded trial investigated the possible pharmacokinetic interaction between vaporized cannabis and opioid analgesics in patients with chronic pain. He co-authored the chapter on “Cannabinoids and Cancer” in the Oxford University Press Integrative Oncology text that he co-edited with Andrew Weil.
Valerie Corral is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana. Valerie was a key-player in the crafting and passage of Proposition 215 (also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996), which allowed patients with a doctors recommendation to use marijuana medicinally. WAMM became the first medical marijuana collective to be granted non-profit status in the United States. WAMM is also considered to be the most legitimate medical marijuana collective and cooperative in the nation.
Troy Dayton was formerly the Marijuana Policy Project’s top fundraiser and lead liaison to the legal cannabis industry. He co-founded Students for Sensible Drug Policy (now on over 200 campuses), and helped launch and serve as the first sales director at Renewable Choice Energy (recently named the #1 green power provider by the EPA). He is a founding board member of the National Cannabis Industry Association and part of the leadership team at the Interchange Counseling Institute. Previously Troy also worked with MAPS as Director of Development. In his spare time Troy enjoys singing karaoke and planning and blogging about Burning Man.
Steve DeAngelo has almost four decades of activism and advocacy in the cannabis reform movement. His vision and leadership have been featured by news teams from around the globe including major news outlets in the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The media has featured Steve DeAngelo’s landmark Harborside Health Center in their coverage in the emerging cannabis industry in California and nationwide for a reason. It is a place where safe access, compassionate and responsible use and lab tested high quality medicine is offered to patients in great need of relief from a wide range of medical conditions. Patients come first at Harborside.
Fred Gardner is a journalist who has been covering the medical marijuana movement in California since 1996. Since 2003 he has been managing editor of O’Shaughnessy’s, a journal he co-founded with Tod Mikuriya, MD. In 2010, with Martin A. Lee, he organized Project CBD to expedite production of cannabidiol-rich strains and to publicize their medical potential. Previously, he was Public Information Officer for the District Attorney of San Francisco. His varied career includes stints as an editor of Scientific American, an anti-war organizer, a private investigator, a scriptwriter, and a songwriter. He is a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser and Counterpunch.org.
Dale Gieringer, PhD, is the state director of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and a member of the National NORML board of directors. Dr. Gieringer has published research on medical marijuana usage, marijuana smoke harm reduction, potency testing, and driving under the influence of marijuana. He is a co-author of California’s medical marijuana law , Prop. 215, and is on the advisory board for the California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego. He is the author of Marijuana Medical Handbook (Quick American, 2008) and the California NORML Guide to Drug Testing (2013).
Allen Hopper, J.D., is an attorney and the Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, where he develops and implements strategies to reform California’s criminal justice system and drug policies. Specific areas of focus include down-sizing California jails and prisons, drug law enforcement, medical marijuana implementation issues, and broader marijuana law reform. Prior to moving to the California ACLU, Mr. Hopper was the Litigation Director for the National ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project, where he coordinated the ACLU’s drug policy-related litigation and litigated cases across the nation as part of an overall strategy to combine impact litigation with policy and legislative advocacy, public education, media, and grassroots-and-tops organizing to transform public understanding of, and government response to, drug use and drug policies.
Martin Lee, an award-winning investigative journalist, is the author of several books, including Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens. Lee is Co-founder and Director of Project CBD and associate editor of O’Shaughnessy’s, the journal of cannabis in clinical practice. Lee is also co-founder of the New York-based media research group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting), and the former editor and publisher of FAIR’s magazine Extra!. H
is articles have appeared in numerous publications in the United States and abroad, including the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Harpers, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Nation, Christian Science Monitor, and Mother Jones. Lee’s forthcoming book Smoke Signals, a social history of marijuana, will be published by Scribner in 2012.
Mimi Peleg earned her BA in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley in 1993 where she focused on quantification and organizational sociology. In Israel she has worked for both HP and Check Point in the field of security. She is currently a Contract CRA for the MAPS MDMA/PTSD study at Beer Yaakov and the Director of Large Scale Cannabis Training for MECHKAR, Arbarbanel Hospital Bat Yam. Prior to moving to Israel she held computing positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana. She is co-author (with the late Robert Anton Wilson) of Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups.
Michael Sautman works at BOTEC Analysis Corp., and is the former CEO of Bedrocan International, Inc. He has an M.A. in International Administration. As CEO of Bedrocan International, Inc. (BI, California, USA), Mr. Sautman is a leading expert in producing standardized cannabis products on an industrial scale in a regulated environment. Mr. Sautman has over 25 years of experience in natural product manufacturing. As CEO of California Cashmere Co., Inc., (1990–2005) he became a recognized expert in production of rare animal fiber products like cashmere, silk and camelhair. He founded manufacturing operations in Mongolia, Tibet, China and the U.S. that provided rare fiber products to manufacturers and finished products to major department stores and designers. After BI was formed in 2009, he has consulted lawmakers and regulators in Canada, Israel and several U.S. states regarding how medical marijuana is produced and distributed in the Netherlands. At BI, he initiated Bedrocan’s medical marijuana drug approval program with Health Canada, the Canadian Ministry of Health. Mr. Sautman has a comprehensive understanding of how cannabis is manufactured around the world. He currently works for BOTEC and recently became a consultant to the Washington State Liquor Control Board to develop and implement the state’s new marijuana law.
Alan Shackelford, MD, is a graduate of the University of Heidelberg School of Medicine in Heidelberg, Germany and completed his postgraduate medical training at Harvard Medical School. He has coauthored medical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals and several book chapters. He has advised legislators in Colorado, Connecticut, and New York on the medical uses of cannabis, testified before state Senate and House committees on medical cannabis legislation and serves on the Colorado Department of Revenue Medical Marijuana Advisory Work Group. Dr. Shackelford is principal physician of Amarimed of Colorado, a medical practice devoted to the study and evaluation of cannabis as a medical treatment option, and of Harvard Park Health, a medical group developing behavioral medicine-based treatment protocols to address insomnia, obesity and tobacco use.
Dr. Suzanne Sisley, MD joined forces with her mother, Hanna Sisley, MD, a family practice physician to develop a thriving private practice in the inner city of Phoenix. They are reportedly the only mother-daughter MD-physician team in Arizona. Dr. Sisley transitioned to her full-time TELEMEDICINE practice starting in 2009, where she employs a full array of telecommunications technology to continue delivering high-quality medical care to populations across rural/underserved areas of Arizona. Sue is an Institutional Member of the American Telemedicine Association and serves on the ATA’s Legislative and Policy Committee. She frequently presents at ATA International Meetings focusing on research Using Telemedicine to provide Addiction Treatment in Rural AZ. Sue also serves as Clinical Faculty at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center at the MercyCare Adult Medicine Clinic for indigent patients.
John Vasconcellos was forced (via term limits) into retirement November 30, 2004, after 38 years ‘Representing the Heart of Silicon Valley’ in the California Legislature. His tenure was especially enriched by his engaging himself simultaneously, throughout those 38 years, in an intensive personal growth self-actualization odyssey, mentored by the major humanistic psychologists Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Virginia Satir and Stanley Keleman. That empowered him to reinvent himself as a whole embodied person, which in turn informed his creating his 16-Point ‘Expanding Human Agenda,’ that informed his policy work in the Legislature and led to his co-founding the Vasconcellos Legacy Project IN 2001. In addition, during his legislative tenure & since, JV has been our nation’s leading legislator in advancing America’s ‘War Against the War on Drugs,’ long ago earning the Richard Dennis Award recognizing such, then becoming the ‘Godfather’ of California’s pioneering the decriminalization of medical uses of marijuana, & since his legislative retirement continuing to serve on the Board of The National Drug Policy Alliance.
Clint Werner is the author of Marijuana: Gateway to Health and has studied the medical marijuana literature and movement closely for the last 20 years.
