A US Navy veteran who suffers the effects of posttraumatic stress and a woman who fights cancer became the first people to acquire medical marijuana in Louisiana on Tuesday, as the state became the first in the south to dispense therapeutic cannabis, four years after state legislators approved access to the product.
Nine pharmacies are licensed to dispense medical marijuana throughout Louisiana.
Louisiana joins more than 30 states that allow medical marijuana. And although marijuana is banned at the federal level, an amendment by Congress prevents the Department of Justice from interfering with state medical marijuana programs.
GB Sciences, one of the two state-authorized producers, began distributing medical marijuana to Louisiana’s registered dispensaries on Tuesday morning, after state regulators completed the final tests and authorized the release of the product.
Hundreds of patients in Louisiana have been waiting for the start of the program after years of work by lawmakers, who created the regulatory framework in 2015 to dispense cannabis. There have also been regulatory disputes and other obstacles.
State Senator Fred Mills, a pharmacist at St. Martin Parish, who sponsored the medical marijuana law, never thought that patients would take years to gain access. Mills says he has repeatedly received calls from people with cancer, seizures and other debilitating conditions, and from family members, asking when cannabis would arrive at pharmacy shelves.
Only the agricultural centers of Louisiana State University and the University of the South are authorized to grow medical marijuana.
Regulatory disagreements between GB Sciences, the LSU producer and state regulators in the Louisiana Department of Agriculture prevented the product from reaching pharmacies before and medical marijuana advocates said the agency created unnecessary regulatory obstacles.
Meanwhile, Southern broke ties with the first company he chose to grow marijuana. Southern’s new producer, Ilera Holistic Healthcare, planted her first crop two weeks ago and estimates that her first product may be available in the coming months.
Under the 2015 law and the additional changes approved since then, Louisiana is allowing medical marijuana to treat a long list of diseases and disorders, such as cancer, seizure disorders, epilepsy, glaucoma, post-traumatic stress disorder and Parkinson’s disease.
Doctors do not issue a prescription but a “medical recommendation form,” a legal nuance intended to prevent doctors from endangering their medical licenses because federal law prohibits the prescription of marijuana.
Marijuana may be available in oils, pills, liquids, topical applications and an inhaler, such as that used by patients with asthma, but not in a smokable form.
The first product of GB Sciences will be liquid tinctures, in three different concentrations. John Davis, president of GB Sciences Louisiana, said he hopes to have oral dissolution strips available in a month, followed by topical creams.
Pharmacies set their own price for the products, and the insurance will not cover the cost, so patients will have to pay out of pocket between $ 99 and $ 200 per product.
