It is unconscionable that patients needing medical marijuana are still waiting to get it. Sixty-three percent of Massachusetts voters approved the 2012 ballot initiative making the drug legal for medical use, but bureaucracy, embarrassing procedural errors, and an apparent lack of political urgency have slowed the process to a crawl.
Here we are two years after the law passed and the marijuana dispensaries are still not up and running. People suffering ALS, glaucoma, cancer and many other illnesses have been forced to fend for themselves — buying marijuana off the street. That’s a dangerous situation, says Nicole Snow, deputy director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. Snow says, “Patients have no way of knowing the quality of the product.”
Compare what happened here to Colorado, which also passed a law two years ago approving recreational use of marijuana. During the same amount of time, the Rocky Mountain state opened its first stores — head shops, wellness centers, and dispensaries — and ramped up distribution. Now residents and visitors can easily buy marijuana in most any city and town.
A year ago I thought the powers that be were undertaking a deliberate process to make sure every "t" was crossed and every "i" dotted. I was wrong. Error after error came to light after the first provisional dispensaries were approved, resulting in license disqualifications. Of the fifteen registered medical dispensaries recently approved by the Department of Public Health, only one is ready to plant seed. Located in Salem, the dispensary will be run by Alternative Therapies Group Inc. With any luck, ATG will open by springtime. That’s good news for patients in Salem, but everybody else will continue to be denied access while the other marijuana dispensaries are hung up in various stages of approval.
And as of this week, patients must grapple with even more bureaucracy. Under the medical marijuana law, patients must have their doctors verify their illness — official permission to carry their medicine. As of this week, any paper certifications originally issued to patients are no longer valid. Now, marijuana patients must grapple with an onerous process to get electronic verification, and be registered in the Massachusetts Marijuana Online System or MMJ. Something the Patient Advocacy’s Nicole Snow points out means “They’ll have a plastic card giving permission to carry their medicine, though they can’t get their medicine anywhere.”
Everybody knows the wheels of government turn slowly, but the sluggish pace of Massachusetts’ medical marijuana approvals feels as though the wheels have fallen off. The stakes are too high to allow the process to continue as it has. There are real people suffering life threatening tumors and excruciating pain who have waited far too long. They need their medicine now.
