Introduction
Date Course Created: August 2024
Counseling clients who regularly use legal marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes is a nuanced and evolving area of practice, especially considering the changing cultural landscape around marijuana in various regions. Legalized marijuana has added ethical and legal complexities to an already challenging landscape of substance use disorder (SUD) and integrated dual diagnoses treatment (IDDT). In addition to the increasing importance of knowing the laws in your area of practice, the marijuana landscape presents new important considerations in both practice models and clinician subjective world view regarding clients who habitually use legal marijuana. Abstinence versus harm reduction and values bracketing is at the forefront of treatment considerations for clients habitually using marijuana – now legalized, decriminalized, and often enjoyed medicinally. Biases around marijuana use and its legality, in many cases, are at the heart of client distress in their relationships, employment, and educational achievement. Related legal conflicts is another ethical challenge to consider in treating this population (despite the legality of a substance at the state level).
How do clinicians with a bias against legal marijuana recognize and address the clinical concerns around a client’s heavy use while still upholding their ethical obligation to preserve client autonomy and honor the ethical principles of beneficence and non-maleficence?
Please join us to increase your knowledge and insight related to treating clients who habitually use legal marijuana. Jodi Geis-Crowder will draw on 26 years of experience in clinical mental health to increase your knowledge of how the landscape of SUD and IDDT has drastically changed with the legal recreational and medicinal use of marijuana. Jodi will explore mandatory disclosure, monitoring, and ethical practice toward providing the best client care without alienating clients or jeopardizing the therapeutic alliance. Learn and understand how your biases may impact treatment, and protect your credentials both from an ethical and legal perspective.
In addition to the below Objectives, this webinar training includes the following highlights:
- A general ethics review to inform attendees of the importance of keeping ethics at the forefront of their practice while meeting requirements for most state licensing boards.
- An opportunity to create an ethical decision-making model.
- An opportunity to apply knowledge gained in the course to a clinical case example.
- Ability to identify at least two reasons why collaborating with a professional team, that includes clinical, legal, and medical consultation, is crucial to navigating the increased complexities that legal marijuana adds to SUD and IDDT.
This is a 2-CE noninteractive, self-paced online video course delivered in home study format via an industry-standard online learning platform.
Agenda
00:00 – 00:30 → Brief overview of objectives and ethics.
00:30 – 01:00 → Tools to assess substance use disorder, specifically marijuana, clinical approaches to treat SUD, definition of integrated dual diagnosed treatment (IDDT), and comparison of harm reduction versus abstinence models.
01:00 – 02:00 → Ethical decision-making models, managing the dance of working with clients that continue to use legal marijuana and keeping biases in check, understanding the need to treat these clients with a team of other professionals: medical and legal, and applying the knowledge to a case.
Objectives
This training will provide participants clinical knowledge and tools to:
After completing this training, participants will be able to identify two reasons why mandatory disclosure is one of the most important aspects of client care that sets the stage for safe SUD and IDDT treatment, especially when treating clients who use legal marijuana.- After completing this training, participants will be able to identify two tools to assess clients in determining the best practice approach/clinically appropriate level of care (LOC) for clients who want to continue using marijuana for medicinal or other purposes.
- After completing this training, participants will be able to name two clinical approaches when treating clients who habitually use marijuana when it may be negatively impacting relationship, employment, education, and legal aspects of their lives.
- After completing this training, participants will be able to identify two aspects of an abstinence model of care and a harm reduction model of care when treating clients who habitually use marijuana for medicinal purposes.
- After completing this training, participants will be able to explore and identify two aspects of managing “the dance” between dealing with our reactions/biases and holding clinical ethics at the forefront of client care.
Target Audience:
The target audience for this course includes licensed psychologists, social workers, counselors, MFT’s, and other licensed clinical mental health professionals.
Instructional Level: Intermediate
Instructor(s): Jodi Ann Geis-Crowder, MS, LPC, ACS
Material Author(s): Jodi Ann Geis-Crowder, MS, LPC, ACS
For additional information about this course, the instructors, or the material authors, please contact Content Assistance at content@onlinececredits.com.
Course Materials & Delivery Method:
- Course Materials – The course is composed of a recorded presentation and written materials (e.g. a slide deck and/or other worksheets, manuals, or handouts as provided by the instructor). The slide deck and any additional worksheets or handouts (as provided by the instructor) are made available inside the Lesson module after a course is purchased.
- Delivery Method – This course is a recorded asynchronous, self-paced webinar training, and there is no access time limit or due date to complete it once enrolled. The enrolled learner will stream the recorded presentation and view the materials from their internet connected device via an industry-standard online learning platform.
CE Approvals:
National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)
Online CE Credits has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6795. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Online CE Credits is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB)
Mind Works Professional Education, Inc. DBA Online CE Credits, #1974, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: July 23, 2025 – July 23, 2028. Social workers completing this course receive 2 ethics continuing education credits.
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- Posttest Requirements – You must answer 80% or more of the Quiz questions correctly to pass. If you fail to pass the first time, you may attempt the quiz again until you are able to pass with a score of 80% or better. Quizzes are graded instantly and automatically by the learning management system once your attempt is submitted.
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