Perhaps we should extend this principle to other medicines. Instead of 24-hour pharmacies, what about once-a-year pharmacies? Good enough, right?
Andy Gaus is a MassCann/NORML Board Member and is filling in for Mike Cann this week.
You know what makes marijuana absolutely unique as a medicine? Whereas other prescriptions are sometimes needed so urgently that large urban centers maintain 24-hour pharmacies for people whose needs can’t wait till morning, medical marijuana is the only drug where it doesn’t matter if you wait a year to get it.
Judging from the proposals of state legislators, the regulations of the Department of Public Health, the actions of various towns, and the rulings of the state Attorney General, the important thing when supplying marijuana to sick and suffering patients is to avoid unseemly haste.
It seems that a little waiting is always for the best and never does any harm … even though one of the main uses of marijuana medically is to control chronic pain.
Mayor Joseph Curtatone of Somerville is only the latest town official who wants a moratorium on any dispensaries in Somerville. Rep. Cleon Turner of Dennis has gone even further, introducing a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that would allow towns to veto dispensaries within their borders. Attorney General Martha Coakley, to her credit, has ruled that as things stand, towns may not totally veto dispensaries—because if all towns were allowed to do that, the will of the voters in passing Question 3 would be nullified. But what about these moratoriums?
If every town is allowed to enact a yearlong moratorium, doesn’t that nullify the will of the voters?
We haven’t heard from Coakley about that, so it’s not clear that cities and towns can’t keep out dispensaries as long as they like by “referring the matter for further study,” as long as they earnestly promise to allow dispensaries at some unspecified time in the indefinite future.
While dispensaries are waiting for the right to open, the law passed by the voters calls for allowing patients to grow their own weed or have it grown for them by a “caregiver.” To belabor the obvious, this would seem to represent the voters’ will that patients who need marijuana should get it this year and not next. But now the Department of Public Health has promulgated regulations as of May 24th requiring that each caregiver shall serve only one patient—
in other words, every qualified patient who can’t grow for herself must find, within her own circle, someone with the time, money, and expertise to set up a nice little marijuana grow.
As a result, many patients who had found legal access with a registered caregiver have been cut loose because that caregiver was serving multiple patients.
What if many of those patients can’t find their own individual caregiver? Well, they can always wait a year or two. That’s what makes marijuana such a magic medicine. Whether you need it for pancreatic cancer, nausea caused by chemotherapy, or chronic joint pain, you never need it now. Next year will always do fine. Or the year after that.
Perhaps we should extend this principle to other medicines. Instead of 24-hour pharmacies, what about once-a-year pharmacies? Good enough, right?