August 5, 2010 – WASHINGTON — No one should be too poor to buy pot if they live in Washington, at least if the marijuana is for a medical condition. That’s the conclusion of a new medical marijuana law enacted in the nation’s capital.

The District of Columbia passed a law earlier this year that allows residents to legally obtain the drug for medical reasons. But it also includes a provision unlike the 14 other states with medical marijuana laws, requiring the drug to be provided at a discount to poor residents who qualify. Who will get the reduced-price marijuana and how much it will cost, however, is still being worked out.

“Obviously because there’s no roadmap on how to do this, it may require some tweaking over time,” said David Catania, a D.C. councilman and the chairman of the city health committee that drafted the law. “We may, in fact, set an example for other states.”

The first round of regulations implementing the law is expected to be released Friday. It may answer some questions about how low-income residents will be treated, but the regulations will also be revised over several months, and patients aren’t expected to be able to purchase medical marijuana in the city until 2011.

Right now the law says that patients “unable to afford a sufficient supply of medical marijuana” will be able to purchase it “on a sliding scale.” Low-income patients will also get a discount on a required city registration fee. Dispensaries, meanwhile, will have to devote some revenue to providing marijuana to needy patients.

The range of what the drug will ultimately cost low-income residents is anyone’s guess. On the illegal market, an ounce of marijuana can range from about $100-$140, according recent police estimates. City officials have estimated that an ounce from a dispensary will cost about $350 and that the average user will purchase about that much a month, though up to two ounces would be permitted. While one city report suggests 300 people would buy marijuana in the first year – a number some consider low – no one knows yet how many would qualify for a reduced rate. One guess is 30 percent, about the same as the percentage of the district’s population that is on Medicaid.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for the legalization of marijuana, said the city will have to be careful that dispensary prices aren’t too different from what it costs to buy marijuana illegally, a price he estimated ranges from $200 to $500 an ounce. If buying marijuana at a dispensary costs more, some people – poor patients in particular – may just keep buying illegally.

No other states require dispensaries to provide the drug at a discount, though in November residents in Berkeley, Calif., will vote on a ballot measure that could require dispensaries there to provide free marijuana to poor patients. A number of California dispensaries already voluntarily do that for patients who can prove hardship.

“I think that ethic of taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves has been part of the medical cannabis movement from the beginning,” said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which until recently had a program that gave out free weekly “care packages” to about 600 patients on unemployment or pensions.

For Washington residents, qualifying for a reduced rate may also be tied to the federal poverty level. The city has among the highest poverty rates in the nation – only Mississippi is substantially higher – and more than 1 in 3 residents get some form of health care assistance.

Teresa Skipper, an HIV-positive resident who uses marijuana to stop frequent nausea and help her eat, said she hopes the new law will make getting the drug easier for her since she is a Medicaid patient. She would like to get the drug legally, but she says she can’t and won’t pay more than the $50 an ounce she pays on the illegal market.

“People under the poverty level and below shouldn’t have to pay anything,” said Skipper, who uses about an ounce a week. She’s waiting to see what officials will decide, but she said it may not change much for her.

“Marijuana is like gas and food to me. It’s in the budget,” she said. By JESSICA GRESKO. Source.

May 6, 2010 – For doctors long accustomed to prescribing carefully tested medications by the exact milligram, medical marijuana presents a particular conundrum.

On Tuesday, District of Columbia officials gave final approval to a bill establishing a legal medical marijuana program. If Congress signs off, D.C. doctors – like their counterparts in 14 states, including California – will be allowed to add pot to therapies they can recommend to certain patients, who will then eat it, smoke it or vaporize it until they decide they are, well, high enough.

The exact dosage and means of delivery – as well as the sometimes perplexing process of obtaining a drug that remains illegal under federal law – will be left largely up to the patient. Doctors say that upends the way they are used to dispensing medication, giving the straitlaced medical establishment a whiff of the freewheeling world of weed.

Even in states where marijuana is allowed for medical use, doctors cannot write prescriptions because of the drug’s status as an illegal substance. Physicians can only recommend it, and have no control over the quality of the drug their patients acquire.

Because there are no uniform standards for medical marijuana, doctors have to rely on the experience of other doctors and their own judgment. That, they say, can lead to abuse.

California’s “quick-in, quick-out mills” that readily hand out recommendations have proliferated, worrying advocates. The state, the first to legalize medical marijuana 14 years ago, allows for a wider range of conditions, including anxiety.

To guard against abuse, some doctors say they recommend marijuana only after patients exhaust other remedies. Some doctors perform drug tests as part of pre-screenings.

Todd Handel, a Rhode Island rehabilitation specialist, recommended marijuana to Chris Snow, 23, who has spina bifida and used the drug as a teenager.

He would get stoned, Snow said, but pot also made the pain bearable. Only after consulting with Snow’s mother and father – a police sergeant – did Handel recommend marijuana.

Snow, who lives with his parents, grows 12 plants – the state’s maximum allowed. He uses a vaporizer that heats the drug, releasing a mist that he inhales four breaths per session, two to three times a day.

Handel says he wishes he had more knowledge about marijuana and more control over dosage. But he is figuring things out as he goes along. “There isn’t one dosage that works for everybody,” he said. Source.