Tag: Medical Marijuana

By: Lisa Rough

The tide is turning in favor of cannabis and the electrifying results are creating new and unexpected conundrums. Welfare for cannabis? What will become of drug-sniffing dogs? Get a move on, Australia! All that and more in this week’s legalization roundup:

U.S. Updates

COLORADO

Colorado is currently considering a ban on using Electronic Benefits Cards (EBTs) at marijuana businesses. Liquor stores, casinos, and gun shops already carry such a ban, and by extending the ban to include marijuana dispensaries, this helps cannabis businesses avoid federal intervention if there is any evidence that public benefits are being used for marijuana.

A similar bill was proposed in 2014 but failed on the basis that many dispensaries are in low-income neighborhoods and dispensary ATMs may be the closest source for those without a bank. However,Washington state enacted a similar law in 2012 that blocks all businesses exclusively for adults (strip clubs, bars, and now retail cannabis shops) from letting people use EBTs to withdraw cash, a law that has been enforced through ATM codes and has thus far been mostly successful.

CONNECTICUT

Two bills, House Bill 6703 and House Bill 6473, have been proposed to the Connecticut legislature that would legalize, regulate, and tax retail cannabis in the state. The bills are lacking details on regulation and enforcement, but House Deputy Majority Leader Representative Juan Candelaria (say that five times fast, I dare ya!) said that, as a sponsor, he hopes this bill will start a new conversation about cannabis after the state previously decriminalized in 2011 and legalized medical cannabis in 2012.

This bill serves to gauge interest from the legislature and the community about legalization efforts in New England, an area that has been predicted as the next major hub for legalization efforts.

FLORIDA

Senator Jeff Brandes just filed a major medical cannabis bill that would allow seriously ill patients access to medical-grade cannabis. The bill is very similar to Amendment 2, the medical marijuana bill that shoulda-woulda-coulda been but lost by 2% of the vote during the 2014 mid-term elections.

Senator Brandes, who openly opposed the previous amendment, said he did so because he believes that the Legislature should be in charge of driving such a major change to the healthcare system in Florida. The real question now is whether Governor Rick Scott would sign it, veto it, or allow it to become law.

ILLINOIS

With the new governor handing out growing and dispensary licenses, the time is ripe for change and the Illinois General Assembly just introduced two proposals, both of which would eliminate jail time for simple marijuana possession. House Bill 218 would replace any criminal charges and jail time with a $100 “Uniform Cannabis Ticket” and a petty offense, while Senate Bill 753 would legalize the possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis and the personal cultivation of up to five plants by adults 21 years of age and older.

MARYLAND

Baltimore City Delegate Curt Anderson has introduced legislation toexpand the decriminalization bill that was enacted last year. The bill reduced the penalties for possession of less than 10 grams of cannabis from one year in jail to a simple civil fine of $100. Unfortunately, the law did not change for the possession of paraphernalia, which this new law aims to alleviate, as there are still police in rural Maryland arresting people on paraphernalia charges. The new bill would help reduce overcrowding in Maryland jails, which is a fairly serious concern and was an incentive for passing the decriminalization bill in the first place.

OHIO

State Representative John Rogers introduced House Bill 33 that could legalize the use of cannabidiol for “persons who have been diagnosed with a seizure disorder.” There were eight other co-sponsors, including Representative Wes Retherford, who stated that his intention to sponsor this bill was inspired by the Benton family, whose two year-old daughter Addyson suffers from such intense seizures that the family moved from Ohio to Colorado seeking cannabidiol oil to combat her symptoms. This is a great step in the right direction but leaves thousands hanging who could potentially benefit from an expanded medical marijuana program.

OREGON

Since Oregon voters approved Measure 91 to legalize retail cannabis in the state, Oregon police agencies have begun phasing out and reassigning their drug-sniffing dogs. Springfield was one of the first agencies to begin the trend; when they finally got a drug detection dog, they made sure that the dog was trained to detect heroin, methamphetamines, and cocaine, but marijuana was eliminated from the detection list. Other dogs that have already been trained to detect cannabis will be put to use in more large-scale investigations, as cannabis in large quantities and in certain locations is still illegal.

Washington state patrols have already made the decision to stop training K9 units for marijuana detection, but it’s difficult and time-consuming to “untrain” a dog and carries mixed results. Furthermore, dogs can’t make a distinction between the different types of detected drugs, which makes their role in future drug investigations uncertain.

PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania nearly passed Senate Bill 1182 last year, which would have legalized medical marijuana in Pennsylvania – it passed overwhelmingly in the Senate but never made it to the House for consideration. This year, the Pennsylvania legislature is making sure that the newest bill sees its day in the House. The bill, which is nearly identical to the previous bill, currently boasts 25 co-sponsors, the backing of Governor Tom Wolf, and some support from key Republicans just for good measure. Senator Daylin Leach said the bill will likely undergo some major changes before being enacted into law, but he wants to make sure that seriously ill patients have the options that they legitimately need.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Republican lawmakers will be introducing two bills that will expand the previously enacted bill that allows the use of CBD oil for seizure disorders. When the bill was passed last year, the legalization of CBD oil was immediate, but there was no way for patients to obtain it – there is no manner of production in South Carolina and it’s federally illegal to cross state lines with any extracted forms of cannabis, legally obtained or not. Senator Tom Davis and Representative Jenny Horne are teaming up to release an expanded medical marijuana bill that will broaden the qualifying conditions for medical cannabis, outline how the plant will be grown, processed, and regulated, and lay out guidelines for how it will be dispensed. Can I get an “Amen” for progress in the Deep South!

WASHINGTON

Washington has had legalized retail cannabis for more than two years, but many cities and counties have placed such restrictive moratoriums on the cannabis industry that it is incredibly difficult to get your hands on it without traveling out of the area. This, in turn, makes the black market continue to thrive in areas where access is limited – a vicious cycle if there ever was one. Washington lawmakers are hoping to break this cycle by offering tax revenue as an incentive for cities that allow retail cannabis shops to open. This is an approach they’ve modeled after Colorado, where they’ve seen some success (and let’s face it, Washington should be following Colorado’s lead – they’re doing good work down there).

International Updates

AUSTRALIA

Professor David Penington at Melbourne University, one of the top professors at a prestigious university, published a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia arguing that medical cannabis should be legalized, citing examples in the United States, Israel, Holland, and the Czech Republic for their overall success with the legalization of cannabis for medical conditions. The New South Wales government is planning clinical trials on the effectiveness of medical marijuana, but Professor Penington says that this approach is inappropriate for patients who are suffering and that doctors should have the ability to prescribe cannabis in the same manner that they would prescribe any other painkiller.

The NSW government has not begun the trials yet, as they are examining options to import cannabis or grow it under controlled government conditions. Thank you for the clarity, Professor Penington.

GUAM

A Guam attorney who had challenged the voter-approved initiative to legalize medical marijuana has agreed to drop his federal lawsuit after a judge ruled that he had no legal standing in the case. Attorney Howard Trapp and Guam Election Commission attorney Jeffrey Cook signed an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit. We are really digging this trend of judges upholding voter rights and respecting legal protection for medical marijuana patients!

IRELAND

A recent opinion poll found that while 90% of respondents say they rarely or never consume cannabis, over a third of those surveyedbelieve that cannabis should be legalized regardless. When broken down by age group, more than half of participants ages 15-24 believe cannabis should be legalized, while 36% of those age 20-49 years old share the same belief.

JAMAICA

Jamaica’s Senate passed a landmark decriminalization bill that just so happened to coincide with what would have been Bob Marley’s 70th birthday. The bill decriminalizes the use and possession of cannabis as well as legalizes cannabis for medical or religious purposes. What a lovely gift to the late, great Bob Marley!
Complete Article HERE!

It’s increasingly accepted as a remedy for adults with serious health issues. Now the question is: Should doctors recommend the substance to children?

By Christine S. Moyer

Seattle physician Leslie R. Walker, MD, has patients as young as 10 who request medical marijuana. They often want the drug to ease alleged chronic pain, curb insomnia or enhance their ability to focus.

Dr. Walker has never given in to patients’ demands for medical marijuana. But she’s among the doctors worried by the growing number of young people who are seeking the substance for so-called health reasons.

“What’s concerning is children are coming into the doctor now and saying, ‘My back hurts. Can you write me a recommendation for a medical marijuana card?’ ” said Dr. Walker, chief of Adolescent Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

She doesn’t believe in recommending the drug to youths, but there are some health professionals who do recommend the substance.

In Arizona, for instance, 29 people younger than 18 are active medical marijuana cardholders, according to the state’s Dept. of Health Services. Arizona is one of the few states that report online the ages of its cardholders.

Although that constitutes a small percentage of the more than 36,000 Arizona residents using cannabis for health reasons, some medical experts say this is just the beginning.

They worry that as more states approve medical marijuana laws and the concept of medicinal marijuana becomes more mainstream, an increasing number of youths will attain the drug for health purposes.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., permit doctors to recommend marijuana for certain conditions, which can include anorexia, cancer, Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, migraines, seizures and severe pain, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. The Washington-based nonprofit is the nation’s largest marijuana policy reform organization.

Only Connecticut and Delaware prohibit the use of medical marijuana by youths younger than 18, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. Delaware’s policy, however, has not yet been enacted.

Eleven states have pending legislation legalizing medical marijuana, and two of those states — Illinois and New Hampshire — probably will enact the measure this year, said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, a Washington-based lobbying organization working to legalize marijuana.

“The history of medicine is just filled with stories of therapies that appeared promising initially and later were found to have devastating consequences,” said Sharon Levy, MD, MPH, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Abuse. “That’s what’s really frightening about this idea of medical marijuana” for young patients.

DID YOU KNOW:
18 states permit doctors to recommend medical marijuana; laws are pending in 11 other states to legalize it.

The key concern is there are limited data on how the drug impacts the developing brain. Health professionals also said youths could become addicted to cannabis; raise their risk for mental conditions, such as anxiety; and have motor vehicle crashes due to impaired driving.

Because the Drug Enforcement Agency classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which means it has a high potential for abuse and no known medical benefits, the substance is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. As a result, doctors don’t have information on the contents of medical marijuana, and there are no dosing instructions.

The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t “recommend medical marijuana under any circumstances for children,” said Dr. Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. The AAP’s Committee on Substance Abuse is developing a new policy statement for marijuana that will express its position more clearly, she said.

Complicating matters is the potential liability risk for doctors who recommend medical marijuana to a young patient who later develops a mental health problem or gets in a car crash, said Stuart Gitlow, MD, MPH. He is president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and a member of the American Medical Association Council on Science and Public Health.

“Certainly there are arguments that the person would have gotten into a car crash” or developed a mental condition even if cannabis was not recommended, Dr. Gitlow said. “But given the known risks associated with the drug … the physician would have very little to stand on in trying” to defend himself.
Marijuana as medicine

There is growing support for medical marijuana in the public at large. Proponents, such as Armentano of NORML, highlight the drug’s therapeutic use in adults, including reducing chronic pain and decreasing spasms in people with multiple sclerosis.

NORML’s website references a study of 38 adults showing that both high and low doses of inhaled cannabis reduced neuropathic pain of diverse causes among people who were unresponsive to standard pain therapies. The findings were published June 9, 2008, in The Journal of Pain.

Because of marijuana’s lack of toxicity and no reported cases of lethal overdose, “cannabis as a therapeutic agent appears to be … in some cases a safer substance than many conventional pharmaceuticals,” Armentano said.

Although there are little data on how the drug affects people younger than 18, NORML supports doctors’ cautious recommendation of medical marijuana for children and teens who have a health condition that warrants use of the substance, he said.

“The reality right now is that doctors have the discretion to recommend a litany of approved pharmaceuticals to young people, [many of which] were never tested in research and development in young people,” he added.

Seattle adolescent medicine specialist Yolanda N. Evans, MD, MPH, agrees that the lack of data on many pediatric prescription drugs is troubling. That’s why she tries to identify nonmedical forms of treatment, such as exercise or massage for patients with chronic pain, rather than prescribing medication right away.

“I don’t think cannabis is the answer for pediatric patients,” said Dr. Evans, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Medical marijuana use “is different for adults, because they don’t have the same risks that go along with the developing brain,” she said.

Researchers have found that the human brain continues to develop into the mid- to late 20s, which means exposure to neurotoxins during that period can permanently alter the brain’s structure and function.

A study of more than 1,000 people born in 1972 and 1973 found that persistent cannabis use, starting in adolescence and persisting for more than 20 years, was associated with neuropsychological decline. Cessation of cannabis didn’t fully restore neuropsychological functioning, said the study in the April 23, 2012, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Those findings were contested by a recent study published online Jan. 14 in the same journal. That study used simulation models to show that socioeconomic status might account for the downward IQ trend seen in the April 2012 PNAS study.

“The message inherent in these and in multiple supporting studies is … regular marijuana use in adolescence is known to be part of a cluster of behaviors that can produce enduring detrimental effects and alter the trajectory of a young person’s life — thwarting his or her potential,” said Nora D. Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement.
Responding to patient requests

When patients request a recommendation for medical marijuana, Dr. Walker asks why they want it and inquires if they already use the drug. She said every patient who has asked for a recommendation either already was using the substance or didn’t have a condition that she thought warranted it.

In declining requests, she explains the dangers of marijuana use, which can include an increased risk of developing anxiety, depression and a brief psychotic reaction, according to NIDA.

Dr. Walker tells the individual, “I do not think that what you’re concerned with will be helped by marijuana.” She then tries to help the patient develop a treatment plan to address their health issue.

Patients, and sometimes their parents, get upset when she doesn’t fulfill the request for medical marijuana. But “I never had anyone scream and say, ‘I’ll never come back again,’ ” Dr. Walker said.

Where the situation gets particularly difficult for physicians is when they’re faced with extreme cases, such as children with cancer who are experiencing severe pain from the disease or from chemotherapy, said Dr. Gitlow, of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Parents sometimes ask the doctor for a medical marijuana recommendation to try to ease the child’s suffering.

“My heart goes out to those parents,” he said. “But I don’t believe” medical marijuana is the answer.

In those situations, Dr. Levy, of Boston, encourages physicians to tell parents that even though marijuana could help their child’s nausea, it could be toxic to their brain and negatively affect them for life.

She said more research is needed into developing cannabinoids as pharmaceutical products. Cannabinoids are the components of marijuana that have shown medical benefits.

In 2009, the AMA adopted policy calling on the government to review the status of marijuana as a federal Schedule I controlled substance in an effort to facilitate clinical research on the use of medical marijuana. A Schedule II classification would allow the drug to be used for medical purposes, but it still would be tightly restricted. The AMA policy stresses that this should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, of the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for prescription drug products.

“There are definitely [negative] effects of marijuana” on children and adolescents, Dr. Levy said. “The fact that they’ve been hard to describe doesn’t mean that they’re not there.”

Complete Article HERE!

Marijuana, already shown to reduce pain and nausea in cancer patients, may be promising as a cancer-fighting agent against some of the most aggressive forms of the disease.

A growing body of early research shows a compound found in marijuana – one that does not produce the plant’s psychotropic high – seems to have the ability to “turn off” the activity of a gene responsible for metastasis in breast and other types of cancers.

Two scientists at San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute first released data five years ago that showed how this compound – called cannabidiol – reduced the aggressiveness of human breast cancer cells in the lab.

Last year, they published a small study that showed it had a similar effect on mice. Now, the researchers are on the cusp of releasing data, also on animals, that expands upon these results, and hope to move forward as soon as possible with human clinical trials.

“The preclinical trial data is very strong, and there’s no toxicity. There’s really a lot of research to move ahead with and to get people excited,” said Sean McAllister, who along with scientist Pierre Desprez, has been studying the active molecules in marijuana – called cannabinoids – as potent inhibitors of metastatic disease for the past decade.

Like many scientific endeavors, connections made between disparate elements – in this case, a plant considered a controlled substance and abnormal cells dividing out of control – involved a high degree of serendipity. The two researchers were seemingly focused on unrelated areas, but found their discoveries pointing in the same direction.

Desprez, who moved to the Bay Area from France for postdoctoral research in the 1990s, was looking at human mammary gland cells and, in particular, the role of a protein called ID-1.

The ID-1 protein is important in embryonic development, after which it essentially turns off and stays off. But when Desprez manipulated cells in the lab to artificially maintain a high level of ID-1 to see if he could stop the secretion of milk, he discovered that these cells began to look and act like cancer cells.

“These cells started to behave really crazy,” Desprez said. “They started to migrate, invade other tissues, to behave like metastatic cells.”

Based on that discovery, he took a look at metastatic cancer cells – not just standard cancer cells, but those responsible for aggressively spreading the disease throughout the body. He found the vast majority tended to express high levels of ID-1, leading him to conclude that ID-1 must play an important role in causing the disease to spread.
Anticancer potential

Meanwhile, McAllister was focused on studying anabolic steroids in drug abuse. McAllister, who also made his way to CPMC from Virginia in the 1990s, became fascinated with the role non-psychotropic cannabidiol, or CBD, interacts with cancer.

Marijuana’s better known cannabinoid – delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC – had already shown some anticancer properties in tumors, but the non-psychotropic cannabidiol had largely gone unstudied. McAllister initial research showed CBD had anticancer potential as well.

About eight years ago McAllister heard his colleague, Desprez, give an internal seminar about his work on ID-1, the manipulated protein cells that masquerade as cancer cells, and metastases. That produced an idea: How effective would cannabidiol be on targeting metastatic cancer cells?

The pair teamed up – Desprez with his apparently cancer-causing ID-1 and McAllister with his cancer-fighting CBD – deciding to concentrate their research on metastatic cells of a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called “triple negative.” It is so named because this type of breast cancer lacks the three hormone receptors that some of the most successful therapies target. About 15 percent of breast cancers fall into this category, and these cells happen to have high levels of ID-1.

Complete Article HERE!

Jeffrey Kahn and his wife are set to open one of the first medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington, D.C.

Jeffrey Kahn, a Reform rabbi living in Washington, D.C., remembers several congregants who approached him over the years with the same dilemma: They’d heard that marijuana could relieve their nausea from chemotherapy or their pain from glaucoma or any one of a variety of other ailments, but they were unable to obtain the drug because it’s illegal.

The issue became personal when Kahn and his wife, nurse Stephanie Reifkind Kahn, watched her parents suffer and die—Jules Reifkind of multiple sclerosis in 2005 and Libby Reifkind of cancer in 2009. The Reifkinds’ doctors had recommended marijuana to ease their symptoms, but they lived in states where medical marijuana was illegal, making it nearly impossible for them to obtain the drug. Jules did use it a few times, probably getting it from a caregiver, his daughter remembers, and it reduced his pain and muscle spasms.

After the deaths of Jules and Libby Reifkind, the Kahns made it their mission to ease the suffering of others who might benefit from medical marijuana. For the past two years, they have been laying the groundwork for a legal dispensary for medical marijuana in Washington. Earlier this month, their efforts paid off: The D.C. Department of Health named four applicants eligible to register to operate such dispensaries—the first ones in the District—and the Kahns’ Takoma Wellness Center was one of them.

Dispensing marijuana may not be the usual path for a rabbi. But there is rabbinical support for the practice. And on a personal level, Kahn, 60, told me last week: “Our midlife quest for a new way to make a positive difference in people’s lives and a lifelong commitment to pushing the envelope to help others made this the obvious path to follow.”

***

College sweethearts who married 36 years ago during spring break from the University of Florida, the Kahns made aliyah in 2007. In Israel, he was involved in fundraising for Jewish organizations, after having spent more than 25 years with four different Reform congregations, including six years in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.

But the economic downturn in 2008 made fundraising difficult, Kahn told me. Their older son, who’s also a Reform rabbi, had moved to Washington, D.C., where he now works for a Jewish social service organization. When they came for the bris of their grandson, now 3, they realized they didn’t want to live so far away from the baby. (Their younger son, who made aliyah at age 20, now serves as the Jewish Agency for Israel’s shaliach at his parents’ alma mater.) It was a homecoming of sorts for Stephanie Reifkind Kahn, who was born 57 years ago in Takoma Park, Md.—which borders the Takoma neighborhood in D.C. where they now live.

Medical marijuana was a hot-button issue in the nation’s capital when the Kahns moved here. Washington, D.C., voters had approved the legalization of medical marijuana more than 2-to-1 back in 1998, but Congress—granted ultimate authority over the city by the Constitution—blocked it with an amendment to the D.C. appropriations bill. In December 2009, though, Congress repealed the amendment, due in part to lobbying by former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr, who had originally added it. The city issued regulations in July 2010 that said it would license up to five dispensaries and 10 cultivation centers; neighboring Maryland and Virginia have not yet legalized medical marijuana.

‘I think the rabbi is doing the Lord’s work’
With their sons’ blessings and, eventually, the support of their local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the Kahns started paying rent a year and a half ago on a long-vacant, 1,300-square-foot former attorney’s office within steps of the Takoma Metro station. Their apartment is half a block away; their older son and his family, which now includes two grandsons, live two miles away.

The Kahns submitted 350 pages of documents to support their application. “We had this pretty strict review process,” said Mohammad Akhter, the physician who directs the D.C. Department of Health. “It’s very tightrope-walking. On the one hand we have a city law. On the other hand, we have law-enforcement officials, federal officials, who consider this not quite kosher.”

Applicants had to demonstrate that they “had the knowledge about what this business was all about,” Akhter said, and they needed to be able to provide adequate security and keep scrupulous records. (To avoid a conflict of interest, Akhter noted, he has never met the Kahns or any of the 16 other parties who applied to dispense medical marijuana in Washington.) “I think the rabbi is doing the Lord’s work,” said the Pakistani-born doctor, noting that Washington has high rates of diseases for which medical marijuana is approved, such as HIV/AIDS and cancer.

In August 2010, the Washington City Paper predicted that the first dispensaries might open in the spring of 2011. Akhter attributes the delay to the typically slow wheels of government and the desire to ensure that federal law-enforcement officials won’t shut down the dispensaries as soon as they open. “It’s a very lengthy process in terms of doing the review,” he said. “As a physician, I look at this as approving a new drug. We have done all the due diligence possible.”

Dispensing medical marijuana doesn’t pose any particular conflict for a rabbi, said Kahn: “As a medicine, there are no Jewish issues,” he told me. Just as sick Jews aren’t supposed to fast on Yom Kippur, he says, neither should they be expected to suffer because the federal government says marijuana has no medical benefit, especially given that 18 other Western countries that have legalized it for medical purposes—as well as 17 states plus D.C.—disagree.

The Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution nearly nine years ago on “the medicinal use of marijuana.” “According to our tradition, a physician is obligated to heal the sick,” the resolution states. And, at least anecdotally, marijuana apparently “provides relief from symptoms, conditions, and treatment side effects of several serious illnesses.” For that reason, the resolution urges “congregations to advocate for the necessary changes in local, state, and federal law to permit the medicinal use of marijuana and ensure its accessibility for that purpose.”

It’s not just Reform rabbis, either. A number of rabbis across the spectrum of observance believe prescribing medical marijuana to relieve suffering is acceptable under Jewish law.

“Basically, Jewish teaching is extremely supportive,” said J. David Bleich, an Orthodox rabbi and professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and head of its postgraduate institute for the study of Talmudic jurisprudence and family law. “The beneficial purpose of marijuana seems to be countering the side effects of chemotherapy and other symptoms … and there’s no reason society shouldn’t take advantage of it.” Jurisdictions that approve and regulate medical marijuana, Bleich said, “certainly are to be lauded.”

The Kahns hope they’ll be able to serve their first patients by the beginning of December. For now, though, there is no marijuana to dispense, because in Washington, the dispensers of medical marijuana won’t be the ones growing it. In addition to approving four dispensaries out of 17 applicants, the health department approved six cultivators from among 28 applicants. (One of the six is a company co-owned by former talk-show host Montel Williams, a Maryland native who uses medical marijuana to treat his multiple sclerosis.) The cultivators still need to make structural changes to their facilities and haven’t yet started growing marijuana, Akhter says; once they begin, it will take 90 to 100 days before they will be able to supply the dispensaries.

No patients have yet been approved by the health department to receive medical marijuana, either, although many have expressed an interest, Akhter says. They must prove that they live in D.C. and receive a prescription from a doctor licensed to practice in the city. This process, too, will take time.

Once they open their doors, the Kahns’ have a business plan based on serving 500 patients their first year, although at best that’s a guesstimate. Their dispensary will serve patients by appointment only, making it less like a retail store and more like a doctor’s office, Kahn says. He and his wife also plan to partner with Takoma providers and refer patients to a wide array of complementary health services available in the laid-back neighborhood.

The Kahns hope that their dispensary will serve as a model for Congress to see that marijuana can safely be used to treat appropriate patients without ending up being diverted to people who aren’t ill. Kahn summed up his mission: “There’s no reason for people to be suffering and not getting the help they need.”

Complete Article HERE!