05/22/2026
It is Time to End Medical Cannabis Patient Discrimination
We are mourning the passing of Patrick Navarro, a medical cannabis patient whose experience helped expose a devastating reality: stigma and outdated assumptions about medical cannabis still deny patients fair access to organ transplant opportunities.
Patrick Navarro’s story put a human face on a problem that many families do not discover until they are already in crisis. Even in states with medical cannabis laws, transplant program policies can remain inconsistent, unclear, or shaped by stigma rather than evidence-based care. For patients with end-stage organ disease, delays or barriers tied to medical cannabis can have life-or-death consequences.
The final months of medical cannabis patient Patrick Navarro’s life, and the ordeal his family endured, were the catalyst for ASA’s Stigma with a Body Count: Medical Cannabis & Organ Transplant Policies. Patrick’s wife, Cindy, reached out to Americans for Safe Access after receiving written notice that UCSF had declined Patrick for lung transplantation. The reason was explicit: “long-term ma*****na use raises concerns regarding the ability to maintain durable abstinence after lung transplant.”
Today, ASA launched the Navarro Family Organ Transplant Resource Center
www.safeaccessnow.org/transplant_center
Read the Release:
www.safeaccessnow.org/rip_patrick
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