If you’d like to discuss medical marijuana, contact Ryan Hurley, director of the Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Dept., rhurley@roselawgroup.com
For medical marijuana patients, legalization is only part of the battle. Health insurance rarely if ever covers its use; some patients spend hundreds of dollars a month or more on the drug. The situation may not change anytime soon, some experts tell “PBS Newhour.”
Proponents of medical marijuana argue that research shows marijuana to be effective or show promise in treating a variety of medical problems, from cancer pain and nausea to spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis. They point to the drug Marinol, which is approved to stimulate appetite in patients with AIDS and contains a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the active ingredients in marijuana. But health insurers remained unconvinced.
There are “legal issues in most states,” says Susan Pisano, a spokewoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, since it’s a federal crime to use marijuana, even in states that permit it for medicinal purposes. In addition, she says, employers and health plans want to see stronger scientific evidence that marijuana is as safe and effective as other drugs to treat pain or nausea, for example, before they would cover it.
Some patients in states that permit its use for medical purposes scramble to maintain their supply.
Steph Sherer was living in California, the first state to pass a medical marijuana law in 1996. Her doctor recommended she try marijuana to relieve her symptoms, and it worked. Sherer used a tincture of marijuana that she bought from a local dispensary and sprayed under her tongue several times a day. Her weekly cost: about $60.
When she moved to the District of Columbia in 2006 to work on federal laws related to marijuana, Sherer lost access to her dispensary.
Until dispensaries are operating in the District, she will continue buying marijuana on the street and making her own tincture, at a cost of about $300 weekly.
