West Virginia Names Cannabis Advisory Board

West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the US, has named a 12-person West Virginia Medical Cannabis Advisory Board to help the state develop a medical cannabis program. State Bureau for Public Health Commissioner and State Health Officer Rahul Gupta will serve as chairman.

Board members include "... physicians, pharmacists, social worker, prosecutor, patient advocate and horticulturalist" according to an article in the Miami Herald.

The relationship between cannabis and of opioid overdose death rates is highly relevant to many in West Virginia.

Despite being known as a conservative state (in which cannabis might ordinarily be shunned by lawmakers and their voters), state leadership has apparently heeded multiple studies which show that, in states where cannabis is legalized, opioid deaths decrease as much as 33%.

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