Marijuana Available as Rx For Some Ills

The new year, it is often hoped, will bring many new things. As 2016 begins, one of them is medical marijuana, which research has shown can provide respite from pain, seizures, and anxiety for those struggling with debilitating diseases.

New York State’s Compassionate Care Act, which goes into effect tomorrow, legalizes marijuana for patients with certain serious conditions and allows licensed physicians to write prescriptions for it. New York joins 22 other states and the District of Columbia in allowing medical marijuana use.

The legislation was passed in July 2014, with a rollout date of 2016, and a dispensary is to open in Riverhead by the end of January in a medical office owned by a longtime oncologist at 1333 East Main Street. Columbia Care, one of five companies selected by the state, will run the facility.

Marijuana will be available in pill form and as an oral tincture, which can be vaporized. The law does not allow weed to be dispensed in smokable form.

In anticipation of the legalization, the state’s Department of Health launched an online patient certification and registration system on Dec. 23. Patients must be certified by a designated physician as having one of a state-approved list of “severe debilitating or life-threatening conditions,” which include cancer, H.I.V., AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy. After being certified, each patient must apply for registry identification.

While some see medical marijuana as a first step toward the legalization of its use recreationally, as occurred last year in Washington, D.C., and four states, Columbia Care executives, who say their work is a “medical mission,” have promised Riverhead Town officials that the Riverhead dispensary will never sell recreational pot, even if it becomes legal.

When first approached last summer by Columbia Care, which originally had considered a former video store on Route 58 for its dispensary, the Riverhead Town Board considered a one-year moratorium on such dispensaries. Speakers at a lengthy Riverhead Town Board hearing, many of them medical professionals and others who spoke on behalf of those with various illnesses, testified about the benefits of the drug, and the moratorium was dropped.

The Route 58 location was deemed too close to Riverhead High School, however, and also was dropped. Complaints have also been heard about the new location, with community leaders of Millbrook Gables, a predominantly African-American neighborhood nearby, expressing dismay.

Each of the five companies given licenses to dispense pot plan to grow marijuana in New York State and each is allowed to open one manufacturing facility and four dispensaries.

Columbia Care will open a marijuana dispensary in Manhattan, just off Union Square, next week, followed by two upstate, one in Plattsburgh and the other in Rochester, where the company plans to set up a 204,000-square-foot agricultural operation at Eastman Business Park, formerly Kodak headquarters.

In an article in The New York Times last summer, Nicholas Vita, the chief executive officer of Columbia Care, said that multiple strains of pot would be grown in climate-controlled rooms and tested at each step of the way from seed to plant to packaging in order to assure pharmaceutical-standard consistency.

The additional license holders are Bloomfield Industries, Empire State Health Solutions, Etain, and Pharmacann. Several of these companies, including Columbia Care, were founded by people who saw firsthand the medicinal effects of marijuana. Mr. Vita has cited the positive effects of a cannibis balm used by his mother for rheumatoid arthritis.

Columbia Care also operates licensed dispensaries in Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, and Washington, D.C. The company, according to its website, partners with academic and medical organizations on research into marijuana’s safety and medical uses, and provides patient education. It offers subsidies for qualifying patients, such as the terminally ill, senior citizens, veterans, and those in financial need, and donates up to 15 percent of its net income to charitable organizations.

Additional information on the New York State medical marijuana program can be found at the Health Department’s website at health.ny.gov/regulations/medical_marijuana/.

Information about the patient registration process is provided at health.ny.gov/regulations/medical_marijuana/patients/.