Medical Cannabis Program Advisory Board Approves New Conditions, Lowers Bar for Chronic Pain

By Alexa Schirtzinger on March 30th, 2010

Today, a four-physician Advisory Board recommending expanding and facilitating the qualifications for medical cannabis. The board, which advises the New Mexico Department of Health on its medical cannabis program, voted to allow patients suffering from behavioral disturbances related to autism, traumatic brain injury, mental retardation or dementia to use medical cannabis and voted unanimously to eliminate the requirement that chronic pain sufferers get a second opinion from a specialist to qualify for medical cannabis.

Today’s hearing also included an update on the medical cannabis program, which according to Program Manager Dominick Zurlo now has 1448 patients (11 of the total cumulative patients enrolled are now deceased) and only five licensed producers. The numbers are impressive, but so is the backlog: 40 would-be producers are waiting for approval, some patients still can’t get legal cannabis and even Zurlo recognizes that the program “ha[s] not yet met patient need.” Details from the meeting and updated figures after the jump. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 4 Comments »

Truth & Healthy Consequences: Dr Eve Talks Medical Cannabis

By Maassive on July 29th, 2009

Four years ago, Dr. Eve Elting was approached to take part in a medical cannabis company not unlike Canntechs (which SFR reported on last week) in California. She was a skeptic at first, but did her due diligence and found that, yes, it can help patients with a long list of conditions. Now, Elting has expanded her practice to Truth or Consequences and is evaluating patients from all over the state as one of the few self-identified medical cannabis specialists. She is also a member of the state advisory board for the Department of Health’s medical marijuana program–and would like to see marijuana just plain legalized.

Q&A after the jump.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , ,
Posted in News | 2 Comments »

     

↑ Back to top