What the law ensures is not a guarantee of what companies insure. That is, just because medicinal cannabis is legal in 33 states, just because the majority of states allow residents to buy and use medicinal cannabis, just because the majority of studies draw the same conclusion that medicinal cannabis can improve health and well-being does not mean that every insurer in these states will reimburse patients who use medicinal cannabis. However, there is a cover. Policies are available, premiums affordable, providers accessible or: what is legal is insurable, although this fact deserves more attention.
Whether the party in need is a person or a private company, whether the person needs medical cannabis to work, or whether a company needs insurance for workers using medical cannabis, individual or group insurance is real.
More importantly, medical cannabis is no longer an excuse for insurers to charge higher premiums. Whatever stigma this or that person ascribes to this subject, whatever the stigma persists, despite numerous tests and extensive testimony from patients, the stigma is false.
The link between medical cannabis and health is too strong to be dismissed and too significant to be denied. The connection between medical cannabis and wellness is also too believable to reject and too compelling to reject. However, this connection is a disclosure requirement of an insurance professional.
This duty is a duty to inform: to act, not to react, so that people who need help – people who deserve help – can not only live better, but can also live well; Live with the knowledge that medical cannabis is not a vice; Live with insurance to buy good medical cannabis, the virtues of which are multiple and verifiable; Live more active and productive lives thanks to doctors, scientists, activists, lawyers, and insurance agents.
This duty is a matter of communication.
By investing the time to explain why insurance complements health in general, and the value of medicinal cannabis in particular, insurance professionals expand the possibilities. Parent with Parkinson’s, father with PTSD, mother with MS, coworker with cancer – if one or all of them can benefit from medical cannabis, no one should have to go bankrupt to get better. Everyone should know that insurance removes the cruelty of this wrong choice.
Then where do we go from here?
What can we do to promote health and wellbeing with the understanding that the cannabis industry is at the forefront of science and technology?
What we can do, what we have to do is: lead.
By leading the public to a solution, by showing the public that a solution is neither elusive nor expensive, by explaining to the public why a solution is essential, the public wins.
This victory is attainable provided knowledge and action are one. In other words, awareness is a recipe for planning – and acting. That we realize how medical cannabis can help people, that we realize that people need help, that we realize that we can help, that realizing these things requires us to do something. Not anything, but something.
Meritorious because it is right and right because it is moral, we must defend medical cannabis insurability. This defense promotes health and wellbeing, and increases support through education and ongoing public outreach.
This defense is a solemn cause.
That defense is our call to glory.