Austin, TX.
Join Foundation for an Informed Texas in welcoming Dr. Ethan Russo, MD and Dr. Sue Sisley, MD to Austin! They will be joining us for this special educational event where we will enjoy a presentation from each of these outstanding doctors on their work and findings. After the presentation, there will be a significant amount of time for a Q&A session for attendees to participate in. Tickets for this event include light fare, one drink ticket and a parking permit. Parking information will be emailed out to attendees.
Ethan Russo, MD, is a board-certified neurologist, psychopharmacology researcher, and author. He is the Founder and CEO of CannabisResearch.org
Previously, he was Director of Research and Development of the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI) based in Prague, Czech Republic: https://www.icci.science. Medical Director of PHYTECS (2015-2017), a biotechnology company researching and developing innovative approaches targeting the human endocannabinoid system (http://www.phytecs.com), and from 2003-2014, he served as Senior Medical Advisor, medical monitor and study physician to GW Pharmaceuticals, United Kingdom for numerous Phase I-III clinical trials of Sativex® for alleviation of cancer pain unresponsive to optimized opioid treatment and initial studies of Epidiolex® for intractable epilepsy (https://www.gwpharm.com).
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (Psychology), and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, before residencies in Pediatrics in Phoenix, Arizona and in Child and Adult Neurology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was a clinical neurologist in Missoula, Montana for 20 years in a practice with a strong chronic pain component. In 1995, he pursued a 3-month sabbatical doing ethnobotanical research with the Machiguenga people in Parque Nacional del Manu, Peru.
He has held faculty appointments in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Montana, in Medicine at the University of Washington, and as a visiting professor, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University.
He is a Past-President of the International Cannabinoid Research Society and is former Chairman of the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the American Botanical Council. He is author of Handbook of Psychotropic Herbs, co-editor of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutic Potential, and author of The Last Sorcerer: Echoes of the Rainforest. He was founding editor of Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, selections of which were published as books: Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS, Women and Cannabis: Medicine, Science and Sociology, Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription, and Handbook of Cannabis Therapeutics: From Bench to Bedside. He has also published numerous book chapters, and over fifty articles in neurology, pain management, cannabis, and ethnobotany. His research interests have included correlations of historical uses of cannabis to modern pharmacological mechanisms, phytopharmaceutical treatment of migraine and chronic pain, herbal synergy and phytocannabinoid/terpenoid, serotonergic and vanilloid interactions.
He has consulted or lectured on these topics in 39 US states and Canadian provinces and 39 countries.
Dr. Sue Sisley MD is an Arizona-based physician practicing Internal Medicine & Psychiatry.
Sue is President of Scottsdale Research Institute & Principal Investigator for FDA-approved randomized controlled trials examining safety/efficacy of smoked marijuana flower for treating pain, post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD, and opioid substitution.
Sue is striving to put crucial medically-active plants/fungi through the entire FDA drug development process to eventually be available in the market as a safer alternative to synthetic pharmaceuticals. Scottsdale Research Institute in conjunction with their 501(c)(3) arm Field to Healed Foundation is collecting objective data hoping to urge health insurance companies to pay for whole plant botanical medicines similar to conventional pharmaceuticals.
Jax Finkel is Executive Director for Foundation for an Informed Texas. After a decade of involvement in marijuana law reform, she founded this 501c3 nonprofit which focuses on rural education. In her tenure, Jax has given hundreds of interviews and participated in many panel discussions and speaking engagements. Foundation for an Informed Texas produced the first medical cannabis ad, which played in rural areas on Fox News and MSNBC. She created a curriculum, helped organize and execute regional workshops from 2015 to the present. She believes in freely sharing information and facilitating organizational growth.