Christopher Glenn Fichtner, M.D., is a psychiatrist who divides his time
between Illinois and California. He has clinical and administrative
public mental health experience in federal (U.S. Veterans Affairs),
state and county systems, and served as state mental health director for
Illinois from 2003 to 2005. Observations at the interface of behavioral
health and criminal justice convinced Dr. Fichtner that the war on
drugs has done more harm than good, and has become a major public health
problem in its own right. Dr. Fichtner is an advocate for a
consumer-driven, recovery-oriented, person-centered approach to
healthcare, and believes that the medical marijuana revolution provides a
prism through which every major healthcare policy issue is refracted.
He credits medicinal cannabis consumers and policy advocates for
challenging him to review the evidence on cannabis therapeutics.
Author of Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point