Response to Letter to the Editor on the Cannabis Regulators Association

Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research is pleased to publish this response to Letter to the Editor by Dr. Jane Allen entitled “The Cannabis Regulators Association Is Moving in the Right Direction, But Still Permitting Too Much Tobacco Industry Influence;”). Letters to the Editor express the opinions of the writers, not necessarily those of the journal and are subject to editorial review only.

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to the Letter to the Editor authored by Jane Allen entitled, “The Cannabis Regulators Association is Moving in the Right Direction, but Still Permitting Too Much Tobacco Industry Influence” and published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research online on June 26, 2024. The letter slanders the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA) and contains false and misleading accusations. Unlike most letters to the editor published in academic journals, Ms. Allen’s letter is neither a comment on published studies nor on clinical results or technological advances, but rather an unfounded attack on CANNRA.

CANNRA is an ethical and nonpartisan, education-based government association that convenes and supports government agencies involved in cannabis and cannabinoid regulation across more than 45 states and U.S. territories, Canada, and the Netherlands. CANNRA does not take funding from the tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical, or cannabis industries, nor do those industries advise CANNRA in any way. Our members are all government agencies and, unlike many government associations, we do not accept memberships or sponsorships from any industry or non-governmental groups. Ms. Allen’s accusations about CANNRA giving the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), or any other industry group undue influence on cannabis policy are demonstrably false.

The letter to the editor is based on the CPEAR Center of Excellence’s attendance at CANNRA’s recent External Stakeholder Meeting. The meeting, which seeks to bring together a range of perspectives on national and international cannabis regulatory issues, had 100 regulators from more than 30 jurisdictions, as well as nearly 200 external stakeholders who registered from more than 100 different organizations that included public health and safety organizations, prevention groups, advocacy groups, non-governmental associations, standards organizations, trade associations, research universities, law firms, and consulting organizations. Meeting registration was open to the public and posted on CANNRA’s website. ¹ As part of the registration, attendees self-certified that they were not attending as a representative of the tobacco, alcohol, or pharmaceutical industry. To our knowledge, we are the only non-partisan organization to require a self-certification process like this.

Any accusation that we set criteria for attendance at our meeting and then violated those criteria is false. We did not disregard our attendance criteria, we took them seriously and reached out to confirm self-certification by a number of attendees. One attendee registered from the CPEAR Center of Excellence and we reached out to verify that the attendee stood by their self-certification as meeting the attendance criteria. The attendee stood by that self-certification, noting distinctions between CPEAR’s role and membership, and that of the Center for Excellence, which they noted was walled off from CPEAR and had researchers and non-governmental experts as members. As part of this outreach, CANNRA also identified registrants who clarified they did not meet the attendance criteria, which resulted in cancellation of those registrations. All of the attendees at the CANNRA External Stakeholder Meeting self-certified to meet the attendance criteria we set out. Further, any suggestion that one attendee (who reported they were not attending as a representative of the tobacco industry) in an annual meeting of nearly 200 external stakeholders amounts to undue influence is absurd.

It is unfortunate that Ms. Allen’s letter comments on and makes assumptions about outcomes from a meeting that she did not attend (she registered and then withdrew her registration), particularly when her letter to the editor advises readers that “withdrawing from discussions that shape national policies will result in outcomes you like even less.”

CANNRA is proud of the work it does to support government agencies regulating cannabis, cannabinoids, and hemp. This work includes, but is not limited to, creating an environment in which government members can hear a diversity of perspectives, including those with which members may not agree. As a researcher, I spent 15 years of my career focused on tobacco prevention and control and served as a Senior Editor on the 2020 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation. ² I would not work for an organization that accepted funding from or sought to give undue influence to the tobacco industry. As the Executive Director of CANNRA, I—along with our board members who are all current cannabis and cannabinoid regulators—have set out strict ethical parameters for our work. It is extremely disappointing that the letter spread false information about who CANNRA is and what we do.