There are no federal guidelines or laws dictating how hospitals handle cannabis users who need organ transplants. The private nonprofit organization that manages the country’s organ supply, the United Network for Organ Sharing, doesn’t have a policy regarding use of drugs or alcohol for organ recipients. So it’s left to individual hospitals to set their own rules, and if a patient is unlucky enough to end up in a facility with strict anti-cannabis policies, they’re either out of luck or forced to find an alternative medical facility and get themselves there. Now that more than half of the states in the country have legalized medical marijuana, and eight states and Washington, DC, permit recreational marijuana, hospitals that offer transplants are being forced to look at whether their rules need updating. “Just denying access to a life-saving procedure for someone who’s just using marijuana? I think that we have to rethink that policy nationally,” said Bilal Hameed, a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco, which specializes in treating patients with liver disease.
(e) The use of marijuana shall not disqualify a person from any needed medical procedure or treatment, including organ and tissue transplants.