Most medical marijuana users aren’t getting it for a ‘qualifying’ condition
Most of the more than 24,000 people who are certified to receive medical marijuana have a condition that isn’t specified under the current law, the Lowell Sun found.
When medicinal marijuana was legalized by a vote in 2012, eight conditions were specified under the law: hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and cancer. But those eight conditions make up just 2,333 of the certifications issued statewide.
Doctors can also certify a patient for any “other debilitating condition’’ — anything from anxiety, to PTSD, to chronic pain.
The newspaper pulled the data from the Department of Public Health and found that 90 percent of the qualifying conditions are classified as “other.’’
“The list of the conditions that have been written in the law is very limited,’’ Nichole Snow, executive director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, told the newspaper. “The law has no right to say what condition is debilitating. Only your doctor can say that.’’
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