Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana products.
News outlets report that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27 warned pharmacies that dispensing medical marijuana violates federal law.
Yeah… we wouldn’t want pharmacies to dispense something that- *checks notes*- has multiple medical benifits.
Wouldn’t a pharmacy dispensing this interfere with companies who entire purpose is to do this? I remember reading an article that stated a massive amount of issues with this exact situation.
They sell beer at both walmart and walgreens
Adderal too
Not everything with medical benefits can be found in a pharmacy. For example, gamma ray emitters have medical benefits.
Even if we only consider substances, there are plenty of beneficial drugs that are never found in pharmacies, like propofol.
So, is cannabis more like a gamma ray emitter or surgical anaesthetic, or more like a drug typically dispensed by pharmacies?
I was addressing the argument that things with medical benefits belong in pharmacies.
But since you ask: it is more like a drug taken most often for recreational purposes, many of which are also not found in pharmacies.
Does the pharmacy sell any drugs that can be used for recreational purposes?
They keep coricidin behind the counter. The one with pseudoephedrine in it
Allergy meds as well. They require a driver’s license for Sudafed.
I know you’re not OP, but it is like we have a system and infrastructure to actually provide safe medical marijuana to individuals who need it.
Often alcohol.
They also medically dispense painkillers, the most common controlled substance used recreationally.
Sure, and benzos. But neither of those are ever legally prescribed for recreational purposes.
Some, but not all.
Propofol is found in any hospital pharmacy isn’t it?
I don’t know, but if so they still won’t dispense it to you.
Fine, who would want Walgreens, Walmart and CVS to be where you get your weed? I would rather buy it at independent stores both for atmosphere and that large pharmacies are shitty companies in every way possible.
Because it’s a prescription medication, just like any other. It’s far more convenient to pick up prescription just like you do any other.
There will be far fewer dispensaries than pharmacies, so less choice, more driving, and worse hours.
Dispensaries vastly outnumber pharmacies in the towns I’ve lived in (Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico) and also have more convenient hours (Denver they’re 8 am - 10 pm). I also have doubts about the varieties they’d stock and the quality. Being prescribed cannabis in most states means you shop at regular stores and get a discount, or in non-rec states that you can go there at all - and they tend to have a tremendous variety. It’s not like being prescribed a pharmaceutical that comes in one brand and a generic pill like most prescriptions.
I’d also much rather talk to someone who understands cannabis and cannabinoids topics - RSO, CBD, edibles, dabbing and so forth - than a pharmacist. I would anticipate a pharmacy giving much worse overall service than a dispensary.
Your experience is nothing like what Georgia has going on.
It doesn’t sound like Georgia has anything going on, based on the article.
It’s virtually nothing, yes.
Norml.org is a great resource to understand what the current laws and options are on a state by state basis.
Do you care to elaborate?
You should just look it up on norml.org for yourself really.
Basically though, GA has a very restrictive MMJ program with only low THC oil allowed at all and something like 6 dispensaries total in the whole state… Nothing like Colorado, Oregon, or New Mexico at all.
The option for pharmacies to dispense the super low THC oil was an idea to expand access in the state.
I’m aware and it’s not surprising that they have an anemic MMJ program. If they wanted to expand access, there are plenty of other states to emulate vs. handing business to Walgreens and CVS. Perhaps just expand the number of dispensaries.
Canada legalized years ago and there are dispensaries all over the place in cities! If you’re in living in rural areas obviously there’s not as many, but still one or two within reasonable distance.
Remote areas have their stuff mailed in.
Right. Where I lived in Denver, there were 4 dispensaries in wakking distance and 1 pharmacy, Walgreens.
The only exceptions are the small conservative towns that banned dispensaries in their city limits or counties saying “we don’t want DRUGS in our city!!” So the stores set up just outside of city limits and the cities have just as much weed and no tax revenue.
If you’re talking about the Springs, the whole county has banned recreational. Manitou is able to have them because it’s a home-rule city.
I was think of some towns on the Front Range… Greeley, Fort Collins, Windsor. I recall that about Springs but they still have medical, right?
Yeah, there are medical dispensaries on every corner it seems. It’s not nearly as conservative as generally portrayed, it’s just that the only people that vote in local elections are the focus on the family crowd so we end up with shit.
It’s not the county. Palmer Lake has dispensaries now, too.
Yeah, except no. Again, most Colorado municipalities are home-rule.
Edit: I like how I linked directly to the county showing that El Paso county does not allow recreational cannabis retailers, including the ordinance banning retail (13-01) and still got downvoted.
I agree with the other commenter here. I could see this going the other way for smaller towns or more rural areas, but where I am at right now there are 4 dispensaries and 2 pharmacies in a 5 mile radius.
It’s also Sunday; one of those pharmacies is closed and the other one will close at 12 in the afternoon. As for the dispensaries, one of them will close at 5 and the others will close at 10 ~no different than any other day of the week.
Getting rid of dispensaries in favor of pharmacies here would benefit nobody except for the drug companies.
The nearest pharmacy is two miles away. The neareat dispensary is a half mile away. The 2nd nearest is across the street from that one.
There are more dispensaries than there are pharmacies, bars, and churches in my state.
I’d much much much rather pick my shit up at Wegmans while shopping for the rest of my shit. I couldn’t give a fuck about atmosphere. I’m not there to have out and smoke out my dealer anymore.
If weed is one of your prescriptions and for one of many reasons it’s hard to be out in public, being able to get it all in one place would be great.
It would be cool if it was an option, but not the only option. A lot of states have home delivery now too.
Yeah I’m in Australia and I do it all online, but I would like the option of being able to just go do a pharmacy, I’m stuck on the whim of Australia Post and I’d depends on how the feel on if you’ll get your stuff on time or half a week late.
I can already see it (again): an employee of Walgreens that is not a pharmacy employee gets tasked to help the pharmacy during a busy period. They are put at the counter to grab and distribute customers’ ready prescriptions. A customer comes up to the counter to pick up their prescription of marijuana, the employee sees the prescribed drug, and promptly refuses to give the customer their prescription. It’s already happened in southern states with birth control, it feel confident it would happen in this scenario, too.
There are independent pharmacies. Compounding pharmacies are even in many small towns. They tailor medications specifically to your needs. They would be perfect places for patients using cannabis medicinally to get pre-set dosages.
There are some, sure. The largest 7 pharmacies have over 70% of the market though.
I live in Oregon in a city of 250k and literally every single independent pharmacy has been driven out of business because they can’t compete against Walgreens and RightAid on drug pricing. These two companies are the only option outside of Walmart and Costco, and have terrible hours and reliability. Walgreens is only open M-F 8-5 and numerous times recently have been inexplicably closed in the middle of the day when I’ve gone to pick up prescriptions for my parents.
On the other hand, we have probably 100 different dispensaries in town all owned by different people. Prices are dirt cheap and availability is great. One is open 7 days a week from 7am to 10pm. Having this shit be handled by some corporate pharmacy would be a death sentence for the entire industry.
I see you’ve never taken prescription drugs for an extended period of time.
Not sure why you’d think that. I have type 1 diabetes, so without prescription drugs I would be dead in 3-4 days.
So you’d rather make a special trip to a dispensary to enjoy the atmosphere than just pick up cannabis products with your insulin?
Yes, I think I already described why. For one, the pharmacies where I live are understaffed and complete crap… I have to pick up prescriptions for my parents and often am waiting at Walgereens in line for 45 minutes.
Then, unless they had a large selection like how Walgreens has full liquor stores, the experience and pricing would be far inferior to shopping at a regular weed store. It’s not ‘the atmosphere’, and I don’t like the atmosphere of 60% of dispensaries (though I mean seriously, it’s better than CVS?) it’s the selection, service and so on. Would Walgreens let you look at and smell a dozen different varieties of weed? Open each jar of concentrate and let you smell and look at it before purchase? Have loyalty clubs with discounts? Have a menu with 50 different things on it? Probably not.
So I think it should be an option but not the only way to do it. And of course I recognize that Georgia doesn’t have a ‘real’ medical or rec cannabis program. I don’t think some of the people giving opinions here have ever lived in a state that does. I have lived in 3 different states with good programs for 15 years.
Come on GA, do it!
Those who oppose rapid legalization of marijuana said the DEA’s stance will protect consumers and allow time for more research.
Rapid? US legalization started like 28 years ago. Nothing about the process has been rapid.
Biden priorities
Who let you on the internet? Don’t you have some books to burn somewhere?
Biden can’t wave his magic wand and make weed legal. This, however, is happening:
He absolutely doesnt have to challenge legality of state drug laws. This is his federal agency.
I never said he did. You need to read the link.
Your link doesnt have any substance, its wishful thinking and saying what folks wanna hear without doing anything. Meanwhile OP’s article is about substantial action being taken against a state wanting to relax restrictions.
all of it is under Bidens discretion. He could have it rescheduled, not go after states legalization, anything short of federally legalizing it.
Congress can do that. Biden could push for it or try to do it by executive order but it’s not his decision or authority.
Until it is seriously studied with results compared to alternatives (not always a placebo) it isn’t medicine doesn’t belong in a pharmacy. That applies to marijuana just as much as homeopathy (which also doesn’t belong in a pharmacy but is there)
Yes I know studies are hard and expensive. I’m also aware of all the other problems of getting FDA approval for products that are not patentable. Those are issues worth fixing and we can debate sometime what a good fix might be. However the process still exists for good reason, calling anything medicine that doesn’t follow the process is a lie.
CVS, Walgreens, etc. all sell alcohol. Walmart and Kroger, which have pharmacies, also sell cigarettes.
I’m not seeing the problem with weed as well.
Edit: Come to think of it, I can go to any of those locations today and get CBD products, making this even more ridiculous.
None of them are being recommended by a doctor and sold as medicine.
I smoke a zip a month. But the medical marijuana industry is just a front for recreational in most states. There are a few pain management and seizure studies that are fairly concrete and reproducible but the “it’ll cure cancer shit” is mostly unstudied and not reproducible. What weed is currently prescribed for is far from passing any FDA regulations.
Better to drop the bullshit medical side, legalize it recreational, and start taking the medical side seriously instead of lead by norml.
Pharmacists are not doctors and they can make their own recommendations and compounds and can dispense them legally if a prescription is not required. The problem here is it’s federally scheduled. If it wasn’t, there would be no issue to have pharmacists dispense it.
Great, you smoke a little bit a month. I rely on it to help control my very painful nerve disorder via pain modification. I’d love a controlled dose dispensed by a pharmacist rather than ‘put a little bit in the vaporizer and hope it’s enough.’
deleted by creator
The barrier to medical studies has been the Federal Government (DEA) for several decades. They’re changing it but slowly.
Since 1968 the only place researchers could legally obtain cannabis for research was from a government lab in Mississippi, and as noted below, they wouldn’t even give you any. Researchers who did obtain it noted it was often old, low potency, and generally low quality, making it not very useful.Linked DEA article:
On May 14, 2021, the Drug Enforcement Administration took an important step to increase opportunities for medical and scientific research. DEA is nearing the end of its review of certain marijuana grower applications, thereby allowing it to soon register additional entities authorized to produce marijuana for research purposes. Currently, the National Center for the Development of Natural Products at the University of Mississippi is the only approved supplier of marijuana for research purposes in the United States, and that production has been exclusively for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NPR notes:
Yet scientists still aren’t allowed to simply use the cannabis sold at state-licensed dispensaries for their clinical research because cannabis remains illegal under federal law.
“We’ll see a decade or more of explosive cannabis research and potential new therapies,” says Dr. Steve Groff, founder and chairman of Groff North America, one of three companies that has publicly announced it has preliminary approval from the federal government to cultivate cannabis for research.There are many more countries than the us
Huh, I might have heard of that before. Anyway, the US funds 44% of the world’s medical research. Europe, 33%, and the situation hasn’t been much different there. Canada and China have done some research on it. But my point is that the idea of formally researching medical cannabis isn’t something people have just chosen not to do, though it’s definitely not a priority for pharma companies.
Oh for fucks sake. People like you will never agree enough studies have been performed.
People like this always default to implying marijuana is some mysterious new invention. It’s quite hilarious to read living in a state that first passed MMJ laws 28 years ago and even more hilarious when you learn that people have been using it for thousands of years at this point.
Many of these places still sell cigarettes. CVS only stopped in the past 5 years… Not all things in pharmacies are medicine or any good for you.
While there are definite medical uses for cannabis, I always felt like the medical movement was both underhanded and dangerous.
It was underhanded because, like you said, there’s not a lot of research into its medical uses and doesn’t belong in a pharmacy. I’ve got a medical card, and my “diagnosis” consisted of me talking to a doctor for five minutes. It does help with my anxiety, but a lot of my usage is recreational.
It was dangerous because once we have medical research it won’t be hard to isolate the chemicals and make a pill, which puts recreational at risk of crackdown.
That already occurred decades ago - there was an Rx pill called Marinol, which was just a capsule with pure THC. It was prescribed to cancer and AIDS patients to encourage hunger and decrease nausea. Patients overwhelmingly preferred regular cannabis for a variety of reasons… one, it takes much longer for oral cannabis to take effect and it’s difficult to get the dosage right. Smoking or vaping is almost instant and you can take as many puffs as desired and judge it in real time. Also, people found the pure THC less effective and pleasant than the plant, which has many other active compounds besides just THC which moderate the effects. Some patients said that Marinol actually caused nausea, which makes sense to anyone who has ever dosed too much on edibles. More research on the other cannabinoids and their interaction is a good idea.
It also doesn’t make sense to take an oral medication when you have difficulty with not vomiting.
not a lot of research into its medical uses
Keep talking about shit you don’t understand. These serious medical studies have already been done time and time again even by the us gov themselves. Guess what they found?
You don’t need to be mad. I meant that the prohibition hasn’t let drug companies do research into turning it into pills.
Maybe you should spark one, bro
Pills are one way, but not the prime way, to ingest cannabinoids. Also plant-based medicine has advantages that aren’t necessarily found in some stripped down, synthesized, single-action formula. The most popular form for cancer patients now is RSO, which is a whole-plant solvent extract that people eat. It’s like a black tar with a dozen different active components.
