Medical cannabis can change lives. As a pharmacist with over three decades of experience — both in traditional pharmaceuticals and now medical cannabis — I’ve seen the remarkable impact this medicine has on people.
But New York’s medical cannabis program is at a crossroads — one that, in the eyes of myself and my peers, was entirely preventable and born of excessive constraints that prioritize bureaucracy over patients.
This problem has nothing to do with the 2021 legalization of recreational marijuana and ongoing controversies over granting adult-use licenses and siting retail stores — except that in both instances state regulators need to get their act together.
On medical cannabis, regulators must be flexible and collaborate with industry operators to ensure patients have seamless access to essential medications amid the ongoing shortage of cannabis pharmacists, which is leaving our health care system in a precarious state. This starts with allowing cannabis dispensary pharmacists to engage with patients online rather than mandating in-person consultations — a simple but important policy that would prevent service disruptions and even closures that operators across the state have experienced due to the ongoing labor shortage.
Throughout the pandemic, the state Office of Cannabis Management recognized the pivotal role pharmacists play and established clear, adaptable guidelines that prioritized patient access to regulated medical cannabis. Rather than build on that, the state ignored what worked and rolled back flexibilities as the pandemic eased, refusing to continue to allow virtual consultations. This has left patients across the state vulnerable to dispensary closures when pharmacists needed to take time off for well-earned vacations or unexpected emergencies and an in-person, short-term replacement could not be found.
The OCM’s decision to revoke COVID-era protocols has resulted in the temporary closures of medical cannabis dispensaries in…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply