This is happening just in New York, but doctors who prescribe marijuana to patients need to take trainings and a test.
An educational course will be required for doctors who want to prescribe pot to their patients. It is an online course that costs $200 and it take 4.5 up to 5 hours to complete. It doesn’t really seem like a lot, in money nor in time, but some patients have still spoken against it.
They fear that, by being forced to do this, doctors will be discouraged to participate and, therefore, lack the ability to prescribe their patients the medicine. Many of the other 22 states that have the same situation going on, have never asked their doctors to take a paid course online on weed. They provide their doctors with all the information they need, cost-free.
Marijuana, under the state law, can be administered by physicians to patients who suffer from illnesses such as: Parkinson’s, cancer, AIDS and epilepsy. Doctors have to register with the state’s health department for this. Also, in order to discourage overuse of the drug, it will never be available in smoking form. Only oils, tinctures and other non-smokeable forms will be given to patients.
All this criteria that has to be met in order to be able to prescribe marijuana, including now the course and the test and its payment, will mean that, in the end, only the most motivated doctors will actually go do it. The others will ignore it until they begin to be pestered by patients about it.
Other voices say that, on the contrary, these measures are necessary as marijuana is not a drug like all the others and requires special attention. Classes should be taken, tests should be sat through and doctors should not be given free hand. This means they think the entire process should be monitorized as best as possible, in order to avoid overdoses. Only that you cannot overdose on pot. But that seems like something they are ignoring at the moment.
Meanwhile, in the midst of this battle, patients are waiting. A woman with a daughter suffering from a severe case of epilepsy says she has waited long enough. It has been a year and a half since the program was approved and still nothing has happened yet. She would like to see her daughter get better, trainings and tests or not.
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