Connecticut Cannabis

[El Trombopag]

Wonder how this is going to work.

http://www.pharmacist.com/connecticut-medical-cannabis-must-be-dispensed-pharmacists

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[genesis09]

It can't. You can lose your DEA license and pharmacist/pharmacy license over such a thing.

 

[El Trombopag]

Agreed, I wouldn't touch it with my license...

 

[BidingMyTime]

It can't. You can lose your DEA license and pharmacist/pharmacy license over such a thing.

Half-right, yes of course, no pharmacy dispensing cannabis will be able to get a DEA license, but then these pharmacies aren't going to be dispensing FDA approved controlled drugs anyway. These pharmacies will be set up to only dispense cannabis.

Pharmacist/pharmacy license is issued by the state, so if the state is wanting pharmacists to run cannabis dispensaries (as they obviously do, since they put it in the law), then obviously they aren't going to be revoking pharmacist licenses over it. CT pharmacist licenses are safe.....now a real legal question, if a pharmacist working in a dispensary has multiple state licenses, will his other licenses be at risk? I suspect yes, his/her other state licenses might get revoked over working in a cannabis dispensary.....but if the pharmacist has a full-time job in a cannabis dispensary, then losing other state licenses is probably a small concern.

 

[297point1]

Half-right, yes of course, no pharmacy dispensing cannabis will be able to get a DEA license, but then these pharmacies aren't going to be dispensing FDA approved controlled drugs anyway. These pharmacies will be set up to only dispense cannabis.

Agree.

It is going to take some courage for a pharmacist to be willing to set up shop for a marijuana-only dispensary. What makes the Colorado stores so financially successful is that (a) they are cash-only transactions, and (b) almost anyone can stumble in and make a purchase. Requiring prescriptions that are then subject to third party reimbursement rates will certainly limit the customer base. Can a pharmacist selling marijuana for therapeutic use only (and that is the key) sell enough to generate the revenues that would result in a take-home salary equal to that of a pharmacist at Walgreens or Kroger?

I doubt it, but I could very well be wrong. [And if marijuana oil really does work for refractory epileptic seizures as well as its proponents claim, that could be a game-changer, establishing a customer base for life-long use.]

 

[SClENCE]

People will stop at nothing to get any sort of high from a drug. Sadly I have no doubt that a pharmacist could make a good living dispensing it.

 

[BidingMyTime]

It is going to take some courage for a pharmacist to be willing to set up shop for a marijuana-only dispensary......I doubt it, but I could very well be wrong. [And if marijuana oil really does work for refractory epileptic seizures as well as its proponents claim, that could be a game-changer, establishing a customer base for life-long use.

According to the article, it is already being done. Their are 6 pharmacist dispensaries operating in Connecticut, the article doesn't say for how long, but since the law took effect in 2012, I would guess that at least a few of them have been operating for 2+ years.

 

[BidingMyTime]

People will stop at nothing to get any sort of high from a drug. Sadly I have no doubt that a pharmacist could make a good living dispensing it.

People will also stop at nothing to get effective medication for physical problems, that is why all doctors & pharmacists make a good living dispensing and prescribing any drug.

 

[BenJammin]

These bills allowing physicians to prescribe the oils are bull****. What doctor is going to risk his DEA license just so he can prescribe a C1?

 

[owlegrad]

People will also stop at nothing to get effective medication for physical problems, that is why all doctors & pharmacists make a good living dispensing and prescribing any drug.

I am not sure what your point is. Do you think that patients take Marijuana for the medicinal value or am I missing something?

I was super bummed that FL missed the vote on this by one vote. I would gladly open a pottery and make a ton of money.

 

[SClENCE]

People will also stop at nothing to get effective medication for physical problems, that is why all doctors & pharmacists make a good living dispensing and prescribing any drug.

Obviously this is true but in no way relates to anything we are talking about, unless you believe that prescribing cannabis is actually medically legitimate. I prefer medicine be evidence based.

 

[zelman]

Obviously this is true but in no way relates to anything we are talking about, unless you believe that prescribing cannabis is actually medically legitimate. I prefer medicine be evidence based.

There is a pharmacopeia of homeopathic medicines legitimized by law. At least marijuana has chemically active content. Marijuana has more evidence than plenty of societally accepted treatments.

 

[SClENCE]

There is a pharmacopeia of homeopathic medicines legitimized by law. At least marijuana has chemically active content. Marijuana has more evidence than plenty of societally accepted treatments.

Homeopathic medicine is a complete joke. Crystal meth also has chemically active content. So does Arsenic and it's "all natural". I'm not concerned with what is "societally accepted" but rather evidence based.

 

[BidingMyTime]

I am not sure what your point is. Do you think that patients take Marijuana for the medicinal value or am I missing something?

Obviously this is true but in no way relates to anything we are talking about, unless you believe that prescribing cannabis is actually medically legitimate. I prefer medicine be evidence based.

Well, yes I believe that some doctors do prescribe marijuana for medical reasons, and I do believe that people take it (and are helped by it) for medical reasons. We all already know that marijuana is therapeutically active, that is why dronabinal exists. Now we can debate about all the problems with lack of consistency in raw marijauana, and whether smoking marijuana causes more health problems then it solves or the very real probability that people will fake medical need to get marijauan just as they do for narcotics and other prescription drugs.....but I don't think there is any debate that there are real people with real legitimate medical problems that are genuinely helped by marijauana.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Crystal meth also has chemically active content. So does Arsenic and it's "all natural". I'm not concerned with what is "societally accepted" but rather evidence based.

methamphetamine is CII, so in its case, it is NOT socially acceptable, even though it has evidence based medical use. So, the issue isn't as clear-cut as you make it out to be, methamphetamine is a good example of evidence-based medicine that is not widely prescribed (I have never seen it, even once), for good reason in my opinion (but apparently not a good enough reason for the FDA to make it a CI)

 

[Wheresmyaricept]

I'm confused. This has been going on for a few years now so this isn't news.


And for those people claiming that they're doing this to get high: there is a list of approved debilitating medical conditions that must be met before this can be prescribed.

And only the dispensaries can fill them. They can compound them in many different ways. In fact I know a few dispensary pharmacists and they absolutely love their jobs because the people getting the stuff are the ones that actually need it and get a benefit from it. They have time to sit down and counsel their patients (mandatory under state law) and it's a lot less stressful than working retail. They creep trying to steal former coworkers and bring them over (and people are doing it).

Of course they're going to have the occasional abuser every so often, it always happens. But I believe that it has been helping people.

But if you check out the CT DPH website it'll give you statistics about how many people are registered in each county for a marijuana card and what the approved conditions are.

 

[zelman]

methamphetamine is CII, so in its case, it is NOT socially acceptable, even though it has evidence based medical use. So, the issue isn't as clear-cut as you make it out to be, methamphetamine is a good example of evidence-based medicine that is not widely prescribed (I have never seen it, even once), for good reason in my opinion (but apparently not a good enough reason for the FDA to make it a CI)

There was a bottle of Desoxyn in my safe when I became a PIC and I was straight up shocked. It was also open, so that means it was dispensed. There are some terrible doctors out there.

 

[SClENCE]

It doesn't matter what the approved conditions are... the diagnosis is often BS... at least that's what Iv been told by these "patients". Then again this was no compounding deal... they were getting scripts filled that were intended to be smoked.

 

[Sparda29]

People will stop at nothing to get any sort of high from a drug. Sadly I have no doubt that a pharmacist could make a good living dispensing it.

What's wrong with that? Cannabis is much safer than most FDA approved pharmaceuticals. There is no legit reason for it being a schedule I drug. It should be treated like alcohol.

 

[SClENCE]

What's wrong with that? Cannabis is much safer than most FDA approved pharmaceuticals. There is no legit reason for it being a schedule I drug. It should be treated like alcohol.

What's wrong with seeking prescription cannabis to get high? Are you kidding me? The goal of the doctor and pharmacist is generally to improve health if I'm not mistaken... not a legal vessel to drug abuse. If you want to legalize it for recreational use and treat it as alcohol that's a different story... (though I personally don't want to pay even more for health insurance to subsidize chronic smokers).

 

[Sparda29]

What's wrong with seeking prescription cannabis to get high? Are you kidding me? The goal of the doctor and pharmacist is generally to improve health if I'm not mistaken... not a legal vessel to drug abuse. If you want to legalize it for recreational use and treat it as alcohol that's a different story... (though I personally don't want to pay even more for health insurance to subsidize chronic smokers).

That's the goal. I don't mind people using exploiting loopholes to get their hands on it.

Hell, I have friends out in California who prescribe cannabis(smokeable, edible, etc) to their patients instead of opiates and benzos.

Why would you pay more in health insurance?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821
http://mic.com/articles/108700/there-s-very-good-news-for-the-lungs-of-marijuana-smokers
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/22/3614459/new-pot-research/

 

[SClENCE]

Well you see cigarette smokers with missing fingers and even limbs due to poor circulation... presumably from high levels of carbon monoxide. Inhaling smoke of any any sort would logically yield this result. This is just one danger of potentially many that makes a pot smoker a liability in terms of healthcare.

 

[StallionRx]

The program in CT has been in operation for several months now. 4000 total patients split between 6 dispensaries is very small and far from the predicted 20,000 that was forecasted. More than one person directly involved in the program has admitted they have yet to turn a profit and financials are struggling.

There were problems in the beginning with quality and price of the product and the fact many people bought cards but are not nearly as active as CT hoped them to be.

Theres a reason CT keeps trying to add more diseases states for inclusion, has completely eliminated sales tax on marijuana sales, and is currently spending 60k trying to get more doctors involved.

Opening a dispensary in CT does not mean your going to mint money like Colorado and California.

Good luck to CT....they need to get more people involved or this is going to look like another New Jersey (but for different reasons)



....and just to clarify dispensaries (pharmacists) aren't compounding anything. Compounds are produced by the PRODUCER.... NOT the pharmacist. In the early regs, pharmacists weren't even allowed to open the package of marijuana, compound, liquid etc. to see inside.

 

[Ackj]

What's wrong with seeking prescription cannabis to get high? Are you kidding me? The goal of the doctor and pharmacist is generally to improve health if I'm not mistaken... not a legal vessel to drug abuse. If you want to legalize it for recreational use and treat it as alcohol that's a different story... (though I personally don't want to pay even more for health insurance to subsidize chronic smokers).

Check into the history of pharmacy, and what this profession did during Prohibition years.

 

[297point1]

And for those people claiming that they're doing this to get high: there is a list of approved debilitating medical conditions that must be met before this can be prescribed.

Any list of debilitating conditions that includes glaucoma is highly suspect. Yes- marijuana is very good at lowering IOP; the data is very old [1970's-era research] but compelling. But there has been a lot of advances in glaucoma treatments since then, including prostaglandins, topical carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, and alpha-2 agonists (plus better delivery systems for the beta-blockers). I have a difficult time believing that a patient won't respond to any of these agents; it is crap compliance with eyedrops (a silent disease, like hypertension and hypercholesterolemia) which leads to glaucoma progression.

The duration of action of marijuana for lowering IOP in glaucoma is 2.5 to 4 hours. A patient will need to smoke 6 to 8 times a day for 24 hour IOP control. Just think of the money that person would spend on Doritos.

The program in CT has been in operation for several months now. 4000 total patients split between 6 dispensaries is very small and far from the predicted 20,000 that was forecasted. More than one person directly involved in the program has admitted they have yet to turn a profit and financials are struggling....

Theres a reason CT keeps trying to add more diseases states for inclusion

Sigh...
Who is trying, the state, or the dispensaries?

 

[SClENCE]

Check into the history of pharmacy, and what this profession did during Prohibition years.

Completely irrelevant

 

[owlegrad]

The program in CT has been in operation for several months now. 4000 total patients split between 6 dispensaries is very small and far from the predicted 20,000 that was forecasted. More than one person directly involved in the program has admitted they have yet to turn a profit and financials are struggling.

Opening a dispensary in CT does not mean your going to mint money like Colorado and California.

Good luck to CT....they need to get more people involved or this is going to look like another New Jersey (but for different reasons)

I don't know anything about CT specifically but I have to think if you can't make money selling pot, you can't make money. What is holding them back I wonder? I do not think for one second lack of indications is the problem...

 

[owlegrad]

Completely irrelevant

How is it irrelevant? Pharmacies dispensing alcohol for "medical reasons" during Prohibition is completely analogous to what we are discussing.

I recall hearing that Walgreens got started or really revved up during prohibition years (citation needed), I can see the same thing happening again with pot for some other startup.

 

[StallionRx]

I don't know anything about CT specifically but I have to think if you can't make money selling pot, you can't make money. What is holding them back I wonder? I do not think for one second lack of indications is the problem...

4000 patients enrolled so far IS a problem. CT isn't close to what was predicted in terms of just sheer enrolment. Also realize not every one of those 4000 is visiting their dispensary on a daily, weekly, monthly visit. Many have decided not to continue participating due to the cost and quality of the product. The program has made some adjustments to what the people want, but many have been left disappointed and were turned off from what the program offered in the first few months. Things have gotten better, but not well enough were CT is seeing substantial increases in enrolment.


Margins...

Producers want to recoup multimillion dollar investments....

Dispensaries want to recoup their initial investment that easily would run into the six figure range (licensing, build out, inventory, security, staff, etc) and still pay a reasonable salary to your average pharmacist...

....all while producing a product for the population that can ALSO be produced in a closet with some lights and having a network of people to sell it to.... without a six figure PharmD, lab testing requirements, state regulatory fees and licensing, climate controlled warehouses, botanists, bud tenders, technicians, etc....obviously a mere fraction of the overhead in the CT model.



When everyone wants a BIG part of the action and not too many people are participating you have a problem.

...lets also not forget about the federal tax rate and extremely limited list of deductions compared to a regular business.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertw...ealers-dude-deduct-it-but-prepare-for-50-tax/