Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Ohio’s medical marijuana law – the most insidiously duplicitous law ever conceived – showed more evidence of working perfectly as designed recently when doctors responded to a call for public comments on the state’s draft rules for physician licensing, with three-in-ten saying they’ve no interest in becoming certified to recommend marijuana to patients.
To be clear, Ohio’s medical marijuana law was designed to allow the state to make as much money as possible from entrepreneurs who want to pay the state tens of thousands of dollars to operate a cannabis grow-site, testing facility or dispensary while at the same time retaining the legal authority to keep locking people up for possessing and smoking the plant, and without anyone ever actually using cannabis legally in the state.
Let’s review. To be able to use a cannabis derivative (vaporizable oil, edible, tincture, etc.) a patient who has one of the approved maladies (AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy or another seizure disorder, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable, Parkinson’s disease, positive status for HIV, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord disease or injury, Tourette’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury and ulcerative colitis) must find a doctor willing to recommend they use marijuana to treat said illness.
In order to even be able to make such a recommendation, said doctor must first attend an as-yet-uncreated education course and then be certified by the state to be part of the program, which will force them to submit to far greater amounts of scrutiny and paperwork than doctors who don’t participate.
Then, the patient must take the recommendation, which is only good for 90 days, to a dispensary (of which only 60 will be allowed) where it will be filled with a cannabis derivative created from marijuana that was tested at a state-approved laboratory facility (none of which exist yet and none of the eligible universities have stepped forward expressing interest; private labs aren’t able to apply for accreditation for another year), after having been grown on one of the 24 tiny grow sites allowed statewide, none of which have been established yet.
That the law was designed with the maximum number of hurdles conceivable between a sick person and a plant that grows naturally on six continents is obvious and now it looks like the first hurdle, finding a doctor, just got much taller. Below are some of the physician responses (sic) to licensing draft rules compiled and posted by Cleveland Scene’s Eric Sandy last week:
“Why discriminate against fellow Ohioans who live without this goofy list of diagnoses? Thanks, but no thanks. I will not be whoring out my medical license to recommend pot.”
“I am not going to prescribe this no matter what the rules are”
“I know two people who developed schizophrenia after taking marijuana. I am unwilling to risk that.”
“I really don’t want any further pain management patients in my practice”
“I worry that we do not have enough data on the safest prescribing practices for medical marijuana”
“It would be nice if the Board provided clinical research studies that have documented the value of marijuana for the conditions currently listed as approved, since the only thing I’ve seen has been the euphoric response that occurs, and the negative impact as to IQ when used in the teens.”
“No study has proven the effectiveness of Marijuana to treat any condition. Marijuana has very serious negative longterm side effects. I do not ask patients to go home and drink beer. Why would I prescribe Marijuana?”
“Seems odd that a doctor might recommend a federally banned substance and risk DEA licensure.”
“The rules aren’t the issue. Meidcal marijuana is. It is a joke. It’s a money maker for the state and the growers- that’s what it is about. Marijuana causes depression and paranoia and is habit forming. We are cracking down on pain mess Burt are okay with prescribing weed? I don’t agree”
“Scrap the whole thing”
“Scrap the whole marijuana issue. It is just a way for those looking to get high to do so legally. It serves no medical purpose.”
“Not under the current opiate crisis”
“An annual report is an excellent idea, but my main concern with this treatment is long term effects. Opioids are great for a few months to years, but the long term effects (endocrine, immunologic, psych) are what bother me. I have a similar concern with medical marijuana.”
“Submitting an annual report seems burdensome.”
“Don’t do it. It’s just a hassle of gigantic proportions.”
“I have carefully looked into the data and there is no evidence to warrent the use of marijuana.”
“I suspect that everybody in Ohio will soon have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.”
That all of the people quoted above are doctors is frightening on many levels. At any rate, that no sick Ohioan is going to be given legal leave to use cannabis to treat any illness by any of these “physicians” is quite obvious. Then again, it’s not as though the playing field here is exactly level. After paying the state tens of thousands of dollars to operate a grow site or dispensary, cannabis entrepreneurs aren’t going to have nearly enough money left over to pay for kickbacks and expensive trips and cruises for doctors the way Big Pharma can.
Plus, the rules for dispensing dangerous pharmaceuticals and highly-addictive opioids are already well-known to most doctors. So, indeed, why would they want to wade in to a whole new regulatory hassle in this unfamiliar and unchartered territory while state regulators breathe down their necks; when they can just decide not to participate and carry on prescribing the pills they’re paid to prescribe?
The legislators who drafted this law had to know the burdens it places on doctors would make participation in the program almost universally unappealing to them. Now, we’re seeing that borne out by the doctors themselves.
Despite all this, Ohio’s legislature and idiot governor can carry on billing themselves as “compassionate” and “progressive” for enacting a medical marijuana law while cops are ruining an average of 18,000 lives per year, most for simple possession.
In truth, Ohio’s medical marijuana law accomplishes exactly one thing: It exposes exactly how evil, corrupt and exclusively self-serving government is.
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