Business
Cash In On Clients Or Educate Them? Cannabis Workers Are Torn, New Survey Shows
A new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers indicates that despite a commitment by dispensary workers to educate users about medical cannabis, dispensaries often prioritize sales over education and the level of on-the-job training at dispensaries is notably uneven.
“If the results are confirmed by a larger, quantitative study, they obligate the medical community to ensure patients have reliable sources of guidance about medical cannabis,” said the study authors. ”Patients with cancer are using cannabis for medical purposes — and oncology teams tend to offer little guidance about its use — patients are often turning for advice from staff at cannabis dispensaries.”
About The Study
The study, published in the journal JCO Oncology Practice, is based on accurate interviews with 26 workers at cannabis dispensaries in 13 states. Researchers conducted phone interviews with employees on positions as managers, and consumer experience.
“Our study opens the door to discussing that we as clinicians may not be able to completely defer responsibility for advising patients to the dispensaries,” said Ilana Braun, MD, the study’s first author and a physician at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We need to figure out ways to address this issue.”
The results revealed a hearty dedication to their field. However, inconsistent level of cannabis therapeutics training among dispensary staff was notorious.
“The dispensary personnel we interviewed are really passionate about what they’re doing and are trying really hard to give good advice. They’re working hard in their off hours, paying for their own coursework, and doing whatever they can to learn,” Dr. Braun added.
According to the researchers, dispensaries often make hiring decisions based more on sales skills than expertise in cannabis therapeutics. Many dispensary workers said that workplace training in cannabis therapeutics was unstandardized and weak.
“We’re hearing from patients that they want this information from their oncology team,” study co-author Manan Nayak, Ph.D., of Dana-Farber said.
“Right now, the system is set up so that everyone—oncologists and dispensary personnel—is working in silos. It falls to the patient to find out where to go, get information from dispensary personnel, try different products, and maybe report back to their oncologist. The onus is often on the patient to communicate with the dispensary. There needs to be a way to close the loop between the dispensary and the clinical team,” Nayak added.
The Key: Cannabis Education
A previous study by Braun and her colleagues noted that “although 80% of the oncologists we surveyed discussed medical marijuana with patients and nearly half recommended the use of the agent clinically, less than 30% of the total sample actually consider themselves knowledgeable enough to make such recommendations.”
In the absence of clinical guidance, dispensary personnel often become the default source of information on medical cannabis, the research suggested.
In a 2020 article based on interviews with cancer patients, Braun’s team found that almost all respondents received the majority of their medical cannabis advice from non-medical sources, primarily dispensary staff, on topics ranging from the doses to the properties of the different strains.
“If patients are being deferred to the dispensaries, we wanted to know who works there, how they’re trained, and what they tell patients with cancer,” Braun concluded.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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