Michigan legalized marijuana for medical purposes way back in 2008. Obviously,
the law wasn’t intended for everyone but solely for people suffering from specific
illnesses, like cancer or chronic pain, for example. True, you could list a lot of things
under chronic pain and that’s one of the reasons some medical marijuana changes
will go into effect starting as of next Monday. As of today, there are over 131,000
registered medical marijuana patients. Additionally, 27,000 caregivers have been
assigned to take care of those patients. The changes that will soon go into effect will
not only affect medical marijuana patients but their caregivers as well.
Changes in Michigan Medical Marijuana Regulations
One of the changes regarding Michigan is the medical marijuana registry card. Up
until now, you could obtain a card that would last you one year. As of next week,
you will be able to obtain that card and it will last you up to two years. This has
been made possible because of three reasons. One being that in a state that has
over 131,000 registered marijuana users printing or prolonging new cards every
year seems like a hefty amount of administration. To get rid of that unnecessary
administrative load, they moved it up to two years. However, that’s not the only
reason.
One additional reason is the fact that some of the changes in the medical marijuana
law will make it a lot harder to obtain a marijuana registry card if you’re indeed
not suffering from anything that fits the medical marijuana patient profile. And last
but not least, they did this because they wanted to show how much they trust their
patients by giving them a 2-year medical marijuana card while at the same time
tighten up the doctor-patients relationship. Smart move, government. Now, if only
you could harmonize federal and state legislations, we could all be on a roll. But we
digress; so let’s get back to the topic at hand.
Doctor-patient relationship
Another change is the one that affects the doctor patient relationship and this one
quite makes sense as it gives a new meaning to a medical marijuana card. There will
be certain rules to follow both by the doctors and their prospective patients. For
instance, starting Monday next week, the doctors will need to have a sit-down with
their patients for a private conversation regarding their medical history on the basis
of which they will provide them with a prescription for medical marijuana, if the
illness is within the regulatory realm, of course.
Additionally, the patient will need to present them with a valid ID card or a valid
driver’s license. The medical marijuana card itself will cost you $100. Now, in order
to prove this is not another mumbo-jumbo regulation, the doctors are required
to follow up with their patients through mandatory check-ups where they can
see if the medical marijuana is working or not. Now, if implemented properly,
these checkups might yield some extremely valuable results in terms of medical
marijuana research.
Will these changes affect the way you obtain your medical marijuana?
