Hospitals Deny Patients Organ Transplants for Smoking Weed
While the tension between state and federal laws has created a difficult situation for cannabis users, there’s another factor that is complicating the changing attitude towards weed: hospitals. Though it isn’t legally mandated, many hospitals won’t allow people who use weed to be placed on organ transplant waiting lists.
According to an extensive report from Buzzfeed, policies for treatment of patients who need an organ transplant that test positive for cannabis use varies from hospital to hospital. The United Network for Organ Sharing manages the U.S. organ supply and it has no official policy for drug or alcohol use. If someone uses weed for medicinal or recreational use and they need an emergency organ transplant, they just have to hope they end up in a hospital that doesn’t consider that to be a problem.
The fact that over half of the states have legalized medical cannabis...
