New York is finally joining the renaissance in medical marijuana use but with one inhibitive caveat: you can’t smoke it.
According to a Manteca Bulletin report, New York will open eight dispensaries across the state on Thursday. Doctors working at the dispensary must first pass a unique training regimen to recommend the drug to their patients adding to a litany of strict regulations, the most stringent among the 20 states that allow medical marijuana. But the turnout of patients and doctor participation is uncertain.
In June 2014, New York legislation drafted a version that appeal to the health benefits while pacifying concerns of unintended recreational use. New York and Minnesota are the only two states to limit usage to non-smokable extracts used in capsules, vaporizers and liquids. And New York is one of few states to require an accreditation course and limiting licensing to only 20 dispensaries with restricted conditions consisting of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.
Nicholas Vita, CEO of Columbia Care, a Manhattan dispensary, voices, “This is a medication. This is a serious opportunity to treat patients who haven’t necessarily found the treatment they need,” and added that the New York mandate “is going to be a game-changer for the industry … because nobody’s going to let anything slip through the cracks.”
New York’s state Department of Health noted that about 150 physicians statewide are poised to advocate the medical usage, but the agency hasn’t divulged the roster. Ambivalence over the law’s passing and concerns in the medical community still remain.
But other doctors stand by the evidence of marijuana’s welfare despite its associated stigma and federal illegality. Doctor Stephen Dahmer of Vireo Health, a dispensary in White Plains, New York, said, “Our hope, with Vireo Health, is to improve that evidence base.” Medical advocates also point out that curbing the practice of smoking it may skew an understanding of proper quantity since patients are forced to only ingest it. But Dahmer reinforces that the extracts are precisely measured out.
CEO Ari Huffnung adds that New York doesn’t intend to hold a brownie bake-off or mimic California’s dispensaries with open jars of wicked mother nature.”Grandmothers don’t want to walk into a dispensary and be told by a 27-year-old bud tender that they should buy an AK-47 joint.”