The Medical Marijuana Program now offers home delivery and nurse practitioners are now authorized to certify patients for the program.
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Saying that in many cases patients with serious health conditions either can not leave their homes or have difficulty accessing medical marijuana products, the state Department of Health will begin allowing registered organizations already approved to dispense the drug to offer home delivery services.
The New York State Department of Health says allowing nurses to prescribe controlled substances, including opioids, will help more patients suffering from severe, debilitating or life threatening conditions.
It is notoriously hard to get your hands on legal marijuana in New York State.
“Allowing nurse practitioners to participate in New York’s program will provide greater access to New Yorkers of all ages and health conditions, since these New Yorkers are increasingly choosing a nurse practitioner as their health care provider”, Ferrara said. It expects to make a final decision in 90 days on whether to add chronic intractable pain to the list of 10 conditions that can be treated with medical marijuana in NY. There were 121 Onondaga County residents certified for medical marijuana.
About 7,000 patients have registered with the program since the Compassionate Care Act went into effect in late 2015, but for many of them, leaving the home to get to one of the state’s licensed dispensaries is too much of a physical challenge. The department will send information within the next week to dispensaries outlining requirements for home delivery.
The program has been criticized in some circles for not being expansive enough.
Current conditions include cancer, AIDS and epilepsy.
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The Health Department report earlier this month made 12 recommendations to improve the medical marijuana program, including doubling the number of marijuana growers from five to 10 and dispensaries from 20 to 40.
