I got my 215 card on a drippy early afternoon. It took about an hour and a half, but a good portion of that was spent in the waiting room — even though I had an appointment. The whole business felt doctory and friendly — if a little rougher around the edges than your average clinic visit.
Let’s back up. I, like many people who grew up in Humboldt County, started experimenting with marijuana for fun in my teens. That continued through my early 20s until I realized that getting high just wasn’t for me — it brought on, or at least exacerbated, anxiety and a general young-adult malaise.
So why, now, seek a medical marijuana recommendation? I’ll admit, at least part of it was simple curiosity. I’d heard from several people it was remarkably easy — show up claiming some malady, pay your fee and boom, it’s legal for you to grow, possess and purchase pot. Larger motivation was for work, having taken on the pot beat. I’ve been to events with 215 areas I’m not allowed to visit. I want to see what the patients see; to visit dispensaries and experience what they experience (maybe without the high). I wanted to see behind the curtain of a fascinating and still relatively new medical industry.
I’m a generally healthy person. But I had no intention of trying to deceive or exaggerate my way into a recommendation, so I walked into the clinic that day with two problems I suspected might get me approved for medical pot. First, I tweaked my back in my late teens playing basketball, and it’s been an off-and-on problem since. Second, I’ve got general anxiety — another thing that comes and goes depending on what life’s throwing at me.
I don’t consider either of those undiagnosed afflictions debilitating. Would they be enough for me to get a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana?
Stepping into the clinic (which I won’t identify), was like entering a doctor’s office in an ever-so-slightly alternate universe. I filled out my paperwork on an overstuffed couch instead of a stiff chair. Posters hung on the walls in place of nutritional charts. It all felt a bit slapdash, as though they hadn’t really cleared the remnants of whatever business previously occupied the space. But my nerves eased as the young men checking in patients chatted amiably with the six to eight other people — all men, ranging from early 20s to late 60s, from work boots to dress shoes — who came and went in the time I was there.
When it was my turn, I was ushered back to see a nurse, who sat under an Einstein poster asking me questions that I had mostly already answered on the medical forms. “What’s the pain like? Is it chronic? Have you treated in the past with marijuana?” She asked if I knew about CBDs (THC’s non-stoney, potentially medicinal cousin present in certain strains — I did), and lamented that marijuana remained illegal at all. She took my pulse, my blood pressure.
Then, into another little room, where I sat in front of a computer monitor waiting to Skype with a doctor. After a couple minutes he popped up on the screen, introduced himself, read my ailments back to me, reiterated some legal language and boom: a 12-month recommendation in less than 60 seconds.
Was it easy? Yes. The assembly line approach felt impersonal, but that makes sense, given that it’s vastly different from other health care practices. People don’t go there for a thorough evaluation or a breakdown of exactly what marijuana product is best for them; it’s just a middle step between patients’ primary care provider and their dispensaries.
It’s like getting your doctor to acknowledge something’s wrong, then going to the pharmacist to ask what will help. Luckily, we have top-notch marijuana pharmacists; in a year of writing the Week in Weed, I’ve met a lot of dispensary owners, employees and advocates who care deeply about getting the right medicine to the right people.
More than 2,000 people have been issued medical marijuana cards in Humboldt County since 2004, according to the California Department of Public Health — 78,000 statewide.
Many of those cardholders probably had a plan when they walked out of the clinic. Maybe others, like me, felt it was more of an exercise — a potential tool — than the beginning of a treatment plan. Others wanted to expand their options, to explore how marijuana could help. With the right pharmacist, they’ll be in good hands.
This article appears in The Affordable Care Act Turns 1.
This past weekend, over 3000 Americans died of Cancer.
Today, tomorrow, and every day after that, 1,500 more Americans will die, in pain, of Cancer. Every single minute another American dies of Cancer. Every American Cancer patient deserves the right to have safe, legal, and economical access to Medical Marijuana. Every single one.
Americans who need Medical Marijuana shouldn’t be used as “Political Footballs” Please call the Whitehouse comment line at (202) 456-1111 and ask that the President take immediate action to remove Marijuana from Schedule 1 so American Physicians in all 50 states can prescribe it.
Oncologists have know it for more than a quarter of a Century that Marijuana is a “wonder drug” for helping Cancer patients.
The American Society of Clinical Oncologists wants Marijuana removed from Schedule 1. So does the American Medical Association, the professional society of all Physicians. A strong majority of Americans want Physicians in all 50 states to be able to prescribe Medical Marijuana. So do their Physicians., Cancer patients can’t wait.
The need to immediately, completely, legalize Marijuana throughout the world is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time, because of its medical benefits and because of the damage prohibition causes to America and to the world.
Complete legalization is critical — its vital that there aren’t “strings” or “hoops” that Cancer patients and others who need Medical Marijuana are forced to jump through.
“Charlottes web” is NOT the solution. Cancer patients and people who suffer from chronic pain need THC, not just CBD. The “Berkeley study”, where 96% of stage 4 Cancer patients who had a wide variety of Cancers achieved remission, used high dose Medical Marijuana oil, 72% THC, 28% CBD, 1 gram/day (oral) over a 90 day course of treatment. It was a small study, and not placebo controlled, but those kinds of results are clearly remarkable, have been widely reported on in the press, and demand the need for immediate large scale clinical trials.
http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfra…
More and more present and former members of law enforcement agree about the need to end prohibition, and have formed a rapidly expanding group of current and former undercover cops, FBI, DEA, prosecutors and Judges, from all over the world, called
LEAP — Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
because they’ve seen the damage prohibition causes to America and the world.
See http://www.leap.cc/
I’m a Scientist. Not a politician, not a cop.
But as a Scientist with a strong interest in Cancer research, I feel even more strongly about the need to ensure that no Cancer patient is denied it, because I’m so impressed with its benefits for Cancer patients.
I urge everyone reading this to PLEASE call and email the Attorney General, the press, Congress and the President today.
Medical Marijuana helps with Alzheimer’s, Autism, Cancer, seizures, PTSD and chronic pain, and has helped many Americans, including many veterans, stop using Alcohol, and hard drugs, both legal and illegal ones.
Every minute an American dies of Cancer.
Every 19 minutes an American dies of a prescription drug overdose.
Many vets become addicted to prescription opiates and die from them.
NOBODY has ever died from smoking too much pot.
Cancer patients are seeing remarkable results using high dose Medical Marijuana oil, in many cases achieving complete remission, even for stage 4 cancers — there are many excellent articles on the web, and videos on youtube with patient’s personal stories about their experiences with it — and every Cancer patient that uses Marijuana to ease their suffering benefits greatly from doing so.
Please see http://boingboing.net/2014/12/……
It is immoral to leave Marijuana illegal, for anyone, for even a second longer.
For Cancer patients, its a matter of life and death.
Cancer patients can’t wait.
Medical Marijuana has an unmatched safety profile, and for people who suffer from so many diseases, of so many kinds, its a medical miracle — and the scientific evidence behind it is rock solid.
For Cancer patients, Medical Marijuana encourages apoptosis and autophagy of Cancer cells, while leaving normal cells untouched, is anti-angigogenic, anti-proliferative, and is anti-angiogenic.
Its also synergistic with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, making both more effective.
For many Cancer patients its meant the difference between life and death.
For everyone else, its a far safer alternative to Alcohol, and infinitely safer than Cigarettes.
Either take them off the market too, or legalize Marijuana right now.
2016 is too far away, Its too long to wait. Every year we lose more Americans to Cancer than died in WWII.
Between now and the 2016 elections, roughly 1 MILLION Americans will die of Cancer.
And Its a horrible way to die.
Hey Grant – the skype examination you had has been determined to be illegal in California and that doctor is being investigated for fraud. You should identify the clinic and warn others to stay away !
Since Colorado and Washington legalized recreational weed, California has added a few hurdles to the 215 law, and telephonic diagnosis was ruled to be ineffective.
Skyped with a doctor. Get outta here. Where, if at all, did s/he say s/he practiced as opposed to online. That’s hella funny. Skyped! Sweet!
Hi “grady” – telephonic diagnosis is not necessarily illegal in regard to 215 recommendations. I got this response from the California Medical Board:
“California Business and Professions Code §2242(a) and §2242.1 call for an ‘appropriate prior exam’ before prescribing a dangerous drug. The use of telehealth may be appropriate if the telehealth exam complies fully with California Business and Professions Code §2290.5.
Some situations and patient presentations are appropriate for the utilization of telehealth as a component of, or in lieu of, in person provision of medical care, while others are not. Ultimately, if the Medical Board of California receives a complaint about how a physician is using telehealth, the physician’s actions will be reviewed by physicians and surgeons who practice under the same or similar circumstances to determine whether the standard of care is met. The analysis will depend on the facts and be case specific.”
I recently lost a dear friend to cancer. It is a horrible way to die- and a horrible life during radiation and chemo. More access to strains containing Delta-2-THC-A, a CBD that actively attacks cancer cells, may have saved her. It definitely would have improved her quality of life. Even our knowledge of this CBD comes from research that was done illegally. If caught, these folks who are trying to cure cancer would be branded as felons and could be in prison for the rest of their lives. For curing cancer.
Cannabis should be legal. And free.
Don’t you think enough people are profiting from our pain?