Business
Can You Ask Your Doctor for Medical Marijuana Instead of Painkillers and Opioids?
It is reasonable to be skeptical about prescribed pain medication. The opioid crisis in America keeps on taking scores of lives, as a lot of other people are living with being subtly dependent on medication for pain.
If you have injuries or require surgery, you will most likely experience pain. You might also not want to deal with a pain medication that can be addictive and might wish to reject it when it’s offered. As has been previously reported, marijuana can serve as an excellent substitute for opioids. But what are the chances that your doctor will prescribe weed for you rather than painkillers?
Professionals in the healthcare sector actually can’t tell you to use weed as THC in the cannabis is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug by the federal government. In plain terms, your physician can’t simply throw out your prescription for opioids and give you a fresh prescription for medical cannabis. However, depending on the state you find yourself in, the physician might be able to help you recuperate by making use of cannabis as a medical treatment
Be Truthful with Your Doctor
You stand to gain nothing from not being straight or attempting to lie to your doctor. They can easily tell when you are lying as they have a wealth of knowledge and experience dealing with patients. If you want to use medical marijuana in place of another pain medication, simply make your case to them. Talking to your doctor about medical marijuana may seem awkward at first, but it is worth a try to see what they think.
It’s no secret the present opioid problem in the United States is terrifying to many people, especially seniors. A doctor is probably going to be a lot more open with a patient that is truthful about preferring to use the marijuana route instead of using opioids. If you have any fears concerning the negative side effects of opioids or the danger they pose, speak up. This will not ensure you get a card for medical marijuana, but it gives room for discussion on other treatments.
Being truthful about your cannabis intake can help you as well before surgery and during treatment. You have to let your doctor know if you are using cannabis and, if so, how much. “To know what medicines to use and how often, you also need to let your doctor know in advance how often you use and how much you use cannabis,” Harvard said.
Make Your Findings Realistic
As you prepare to ask your doctor to approve cannabis prescriptions to alleviate your pain, you should sound educated on the subject,. This can be a difficult task to carry out, as medical research on cannabis continues to be difficult because it is still illegal federally. This absence of research is part of what hinders doctors and organizations from completely accepting medical cannabis today.
For example, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has stated that “although pain control is one of the most general reasons people report medical cannabis use in the U.S., there is little evidence that cannabis is effective in treating various types of chronic or acute pain.” This suggests that approaching your physician with exploration, information, and sufficient defense for your wanting to use cannabis rather than any other pain relief drug is a good system to help prevent your physician from telling you that the information to back it up just is not sufficient.
Doctors are very knowledgeable but keep in mind that medical cannabis and its merits are still a very new science, and only some medical professionals will have current information about all the latest developments.
Take Your Physician’s Advice
After all is said and done, you have to remember that your physician is offering you an informed opinion, and you ought not to shrug it off and insist that it is an MMJ card or nothing. Treatment plans and medical opinions should be followed to avoid taking unnecessary risks. Take this advice seriously if your doctor does not recommend cannabis as an alternative to painkillers.
Have in mind that even if your physician is not in support of your preference to make use of medical cannabis, you might go and look for another opinion. After all, NORML said that more than half of medical professionals believe that you can use cannabis medically.
However, if you notice that a second opinion says no to medical cannabis, you should listen to their advice. In any case, cannabis is not a cure for everything. Some medical issues require certain treatment plans that do not include marijuana.
Some Doctors Welcome It
One of the doctors authorizing patients for medical marijuana in Missouri, Dr. Patricia Hurford, was skeptical about the merits of medical cannabis for a long time. Hurford said that she felt it was probably a gateway drug, or that there just wasn’t adequate science to support its use.
Hurford is also practicing in Illinois. After the state-approved medical marijuana in 2013, she began to look at things from a different angle. Her patients often suffered from chronic pain and asked her about its application. Hurford eventually agreed to try marijuana, after the normal drug therapies failed to help one patient. Hurford stated that she could not manage their pain with either opioids or non-opioids. After this patient was certified, she saw a dramatic change in the quality of the patient’s life.
For Hurford, it is crucial to investigate how the use of potentially addictive analgesics can be reduced among her patients. She started by saying that with the number of complications she has with opioids and the number of patients who fall into opioid addiction, she finds marijuana to be a much safer and more useful alternative.
Although it is not required by the state, Hurford ensures patients get a list of likely side effects and dangers of marijuana use, such as lung diseases, allergic reactions, and memory problems.
Bottom Line
Medical cannabis is a relatively new concept that does not have substantial scientific evidence to make it a sure cure or a perfect alternative to painkillers. Although there have been cases here and there that support the claim that medical marijuana is a better way to cure pain, some doctors will not give in to the trend based on hearsay alone due to the fear of cannabis as a drug being a gateway drug, meaning patients can easily get hooked on it.
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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