Post by Logan on Mar 30, 2016 10:50:30 GMT -6
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As Governor Raimondo's administration goes to bat to defend the need for significant revisions to the state's medical marijuana program, officials for the first time are being forced to acknowledge numerous problems with the current law.
During a lengthy House Finance hearing on the budget article that proposes to impose fees and a tracking system on medical marijuana plants grown by patients and other individual registered growers, Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott said her agency has been put in an "uncomfortable" position. After the department issues a medical marijuana card no one knows if the marijuana had any other substances added to it, what kind of conditions it was grown in, where it was grown and if the grower is abiding by state-imposed limits on the number of plants, she said.
Those are only some of the problems. Among the others officials cited: The Health Department receives roughly 125 medical marijuana patient applications a week and maintains a consistent backlog of 400 to 500 applications because it doesn't have the staffing to meet the demands of the state's more than 13,280 patients. There are no records of where plants are being grown. There's also no mandated system for testing and labeling marijuana products to ensure safety.
www.providencejournal.com/news/20160329/ri-lawmakers-told-medical-marijuana-program-lacks-oversight
During a lengthy House Finance hearing on the budget article that proposes to impose fees and a tracking system on medical marijuana plants grown by patients and other individual registered growers, Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott said her agency has been put in an "uncomfortable" position. After the department issues a medical marijuana card no one knows if the marijuana had any other substances added to it, what kind of conditions it was grown in, where it was grown and if the grower is abiding by state-imposed limits on the number of plants, she said.
Those are only some of the problems. Among the others officials cited: The Health Department receives roughly 125 medical marijuana patient applications a week and maintains a consistent backlog of 400 to 500 applications because it doesn't have the staffing to meet the demands of the state's more than 13,280 patients. There are no records of where plants are being grown. There's also no mandated system for testing and labeling marijuana products to ensure safety.
www.providencejournal.com/news/20160329/ri-lawmakers-told-medical-marijuana-program-lacks-oversight