Minnesota health officials will allow residents with intractable pain to buy medical marijuana starting in August, they announced Wednesday in a long-awaited decision that could expand enrollment in the state’s struggling program by thousands of patients. Hopefully, Minnesota legislators and policymakers will continue to improve the state’s medical cannabis laws, including allowing cannabis to be smoked and vaporized.
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Munson-Regala noted the enrollment bump could eventually be massive – pain patients outnumber all conditions by as much as 10 times in the other medical marijuana states that allow the condition, he said. The medical marijuana program of the state has been highly restricted until now, accepting only nine medical conditions since its beginning, on July1.
Patients will be able to enroll for pain management marijuana on July 1 and pick it up a month later.
As with the program’s other qualifying conditions, patients seeking medical cannabis to treat intractable pain will need advance certification from a Minnesota health care provider. Recent research shows that states that allow medical marijuana for severe and chronic pain have lower rates of fatal prescription drug overdoses. “Those supporting this bill could have included “intractable” pain as a qualifying condition, but chose not to”.
“The relative scarcity of firm evidence made this a hard decision”, Commissioner Ehlinger said.
This change will make Minnesota the 19th state where people with intractable pain – pain that cannot otherwise be cured or treated – can legally use medical marijuana, the Associated Press reported. Kyle Kingsley, chief executive at Minnesota Medical Solutions, said the addition would eventually allow them to reduce prices for their medicine.
Not everyone agreed Ehlinger’s decision was right.
Ehlinger said that he has no enforcement powers if doctors and other health professionals abuse the law and recommend too many patients for marijuana use.
Still, patients, lawmakers and providers praised the decision.
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Marijuana technically is not prescribed. Among those patients are infants, children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and people with psychosis or with a family history of it.
