This past decade, I have been in solo practice as a medical marijuana doctor helping people get their medical marijuana license. Prior to becoming a medical marijuana doctor, I worked as an emergency medicine doctor at Denver Health. The medical field is a complicated universe. As a younger doctor, a mentor of mine gave some advice regarding how to navigate through this complicated universe. He explained to me that whatever you do as a doctor, if you do it for the patient’s well-being, you will be doing it for the right reasons. Nearly 25 years later, it is the best advice I ever got from someone regarding how to always be the best doctor I can be. “Do it for the patient” and you will never be misguided.
It is for this reason that I am writing this to the State of Colorado and to all of my patients.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has announced plans to nearly double the annual processing fee for every patient applying for a medical marijuana license. The stated plan is to increase the fee now in 2024, with the promise of a great new website in 2031. I have to sound my displeasure and skepticism.
I think this is a bad idea for many reasons: The state medical marijuana website is bad and has been bad since its inception. The website is difficult to navigate, mysterious, frustrating, and makes people want to quit being a medical marijuana patient. There has been ample opportunity to make improvements to this website, and even the most basic improvements have been ignored. People have been reduced to tears because of the difficulty navigating the application process here in Colorado.
I have been working as a medical marijuana doctor for a decade now. I have had to bear witness to the gradual destruction of a program that has been helpful and life-saving for many thousands of people. The state has made it more difficult to obtain and less valuable to the medical cannabis patient. The state is considering raising the patient processing fee from $29.50 to $52 at a time when the value of the license is being undercut by the same people raising the fee.
To say the patient application process is difficult to navigate is an understatement. The phone helpline has been anywhere from good to nonexistent over the years. Since the start of online application process, there have been no visible improvements to the application process. Most patients over the age of sixty will not successfully navigate the website without the assistance of someone who knows the tricks of the process. The frustration from my patients is daily and extreme.
Current State of Medical Marijuana in Colorado
Edibles are the best way of using marijuana as a medication, in my opinion. But because of the shrinking market and expensive licensing fees to produce edibles in the state of Colorado, more edibles companies are leaving Colorado in favor of states where medical marijuana is more valued. Dispensaries are shrinking and shutting down their medical sales and product offerings. Licensing fees to sell medical marijuana to patients are expensive; regulations on dispensaries, like being forced to maintain separate medical and recreational licenses and shopping areas, all have the effect of pushing medical patients into the recreational marijuana space. However, recreational marijuana sells in smaller quantities, at higher prices and with higher taxes, which pushes people away from the state licensed dispensaries where the medicine is tested, and back to the streets for marijuana, which is not tested and could be laced with other substances.I find it incredible that the state is going to increase fees at a time when the economy is struggling and patients are struggling financially and with a broken health care system. Medical marijuana is struggling to survive and losing patients for many reasons. All of this adds up to people at the state wanting to end medical marijuana in the name of the dollar. Dispensaries have been faced with the decision to continue helping medical patients or shutter the dispensary and move everyone toward recreational marijuana. This, too, is motivated by money. The state has made it more difficult for medical dispensaries to survive, which results in fewer medical options for patients.
All of this has resulted in a continual decline in medical marijuana patients, which is obvious in the graph above, taken from the CDPHE website. Patient numbers peaked in 2011 with over 128,000 patients, but there were just over 65,500 patients as of this January as that number continues to drop.
Doubling the state’s fee for many of my patients on fixed income will mean that they will stop getting medical marijuana. Some of them will go recreational, but many will go to the street for their medicine, and some of the street cannabis could be laced with much more dangerous drugs or substances.
Just after signing a bill allowing children more access to medical marijuana while in school, Governor Polis signed House Bill 1317 in 2021, which mandated two provider visits for patients under the age of 21 every year until they turn 21. The state has also mandated that patients under the age of 21 will have to see two medical marijuana doctors each year, paying two separate doctor’s fees and one state fee. This second doctor visit offers the patient no added value or information; it simply doubles the price and effort needed to to use medical marijuana. In my opinion, this has pushed many under-21 patients to the streets for weed. It adds unnecessary hurdles without enhancing patient care.
Doc Morrison medical marijuana has been the best medical doctor job I have ever had. I have enjoyed developing this practice and being of use for all of my patients. I have loved getting to know my patients and learning how medical marijuana has enhanced and sometimes saved their lives. It has been an adventure and fills me with pride to know that we have helped so many people over the past decade. Ten years of greatness.
I hope medical marijuana is not dead. My promise to my patients is that I will continue being a medical marijuana doctor until the very last patient. I believe that somewhere between this great plant medicine and getting it to the people in a safe, consistent manner, human greed has interfered.
Someone recently told me that “medical marijuana has failed” in Colorado, which I do not believe. If anything, we have failed medical marijuana. In favor of what? I am not sure.
Let’s hope that the decision-makers listen and prioritize patient well-being over financial gains.
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