OUR TEAM

Doctors for Responsible Access is committed to fostering an open and objective dialogue on cannabis legalization from a health perspective. Our board of advisors includes medical practitioners with diverse perspectives, expertise and experience in the practice of cannabinoid medicine.

Claude Cyr, MD

Founder of DRA

Dr Cyr is the founder of Doctors for Responsible Access. He has been practicing family medicine in Quebec for 20 years, with an interest in pain management, geriatrics and mental health. He is an associate researcher for the Quebec Cannabis Registry and former consultant for Telus Health Solutions. He is a part time faculty lecturer for the McGill University Department of Family Medicine and is the father of two teenagers.

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Ilan Nachim, MD

Dr. Ilan Nachim is a specialist in family medicine and has a particular interest in pain and addiction medicine which has earned him recognition from the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is co-founder of the Cannabinoid Medical Clinic and Vector Medical. He regularly lectures regarding the medical uses of marijuana. Dr. Nachim holds a certificate in opioid dependence treatment and helped develop and implement the community opioid treatment program for Addiction Services for York Region. He is also the site lead for the Mentoring, Education, and Clinical Tools for Addiction: Primary Care-Hospital Integration (META:PHI) project at the Southlake Regional Health Centre.

Sana-Ara Ahmed, MD

Dr. Sana-Ara Ahmed is a Clinical Anesthesiologist licensed in Ontario, Alberta and BC. She is a medical marijuana specialist who also has Specialist training in Chronic Pain Interventional Medicine. She has a fellowship in Medical Education from the University of Toronto, is Founder & Medical Director for The Health Boutique, and President of Optimerge – a provider of comprehensive Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Implementation Services. She currently practices in Calgary.

Marcel O. Bonn-Miller, MD, PhD

Dr. Bonn-Miller is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI). He is also a Research Health Science Specialist at the National Center for PTSD and Center for Innovation to Implementation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, as well as the Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education at the Philadelphia VAMC. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Ann T Nguyen, MD

Dr. Huu Trâm Anh Nguyen is a faculty teacher of anesthesiology at Université de Montreal and director of the pain clinic at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital. She has published many articles on pain management and treatment guidelines.

Viviane Hoduc, MD

Dr. Hoduc is a family physician specializing in palliative care and pain management. She has vast experience with medical cannabis and is particularly interested in the role physicians will play in the public health outcome of cannabis legalization.

Marcel Boulanger, MD

Dr. Boulanger is an internationally-renowned Quebec physician who worked for more than three decades at Montreal’s Institute of Cardiology as an anesthesiologist and Director of Professional Services. Having witnessed first-hand the damage done to his patients by tobacco, he was one of the first members of the medical profession to convince governments and the media of the need for action. He was President of the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health from 1997 to 2010. The Marcel Boulanger Award was created to honour the vision of a man who was a veritable pioneer in the fight to implement responsible tobacco laws in the province of Quebec.

Ed Gogek, MD

Dr. Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist who, in thirty years of practice, has treated over 10,000 people experiencing addiction issues, in mental health centers, private practice, jails, prisons, homeless clinics, and many substance abuse treatment programs.  He is also the author of Marijuana Debunked.

Ian Mitchell, MD

Ian Mitchell is an Emergency Medicine specialist at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, British Columbia.  He is an advocate for the Take Home Naloxone program in British Columbia and is interested in the reduction of opiate based fatalities with the use of medical cannabis for chronic pain.  He is the Site Scholar (EBM & Research)  for the Kamloops Family Medicine Residency program.  He is the qualified investigator for an upcoming randomized controlled trial on the use of medical cannabis for PTSD.