Posts Tagged ‘medical marijuana’

« Older Entries

Arizona Medical Marijuana Program Snapshot at 2

April 20th, 2013

This month marked the 2nd anniversary of our Arizona Medical Marijuana Program.   We began issuing cards to qualifying patients 2 years ago this week, and as of April 16th we had about 38,000 qualified patients in AZ.

On the Dispensary side of the house…  16 dispensaries are approved to operate in AZ, and another 13 have turned in their paperwork asking for an opening inspection.  All 98 of the applicants that received Registration Certificates last Summer have until August 7th to complete all of our requirements and earn their operating license- because all of the certificates expire on that day.   Also, June 7 is the deadline for prospective dispensaries to turn in their Approval to Operate application.

By the way, the state computer system will be down for maintenance this Saturday 4/20 and there may be intermittent service, but things should be back on-line Sunday.

12 comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Our Most Popular ADHS Website

February 14th, 2013

Guess which one of our ADHS Websites consistently has the most hits.  Our influenza pages during flu season?  Medical marijuana during our rulemaking?  Questions about WIC eligibility?  Nope.  It’s our Genealogy website.  The site has had more than 5,100,000 queries in the last 2 years.

Our Vital Records team has been keeping data on birth and death certificates since 1855.  A few years ago, our easy to use Genealogy website was put together so folks can do research on their family history.   The data on the site includes AZ births before 1938 and deaths before 1963.  The public records statute says that birth certificates need to be at least 75 years old and death certificates 50 years ago in order to be loaded on the site.  The information was extracted from photo reproductions of the original certificates by volunteers from the Mesa Regional Family History Center.

We don’t have a budget top maintain the site… but we recently put up a feature so that folks can donate funds to the ADHS Public Genealogy Website for future enhancements.

1 comment »

Posted in General

Tags:

New M2 Petitions on Horizon Again

January 23rd, 2013

Last January we accepted petitions from the public to add PTSD 1; PTSD 2; Depression; Migraines; and Generalized Anxiety Disorder to the list of conditions that qualify patients to receive a Medical Marijuana Registration Card.  Because my guiding principle for making the decision was to use science and research to make the decision, we contracted with the U of A College of Public Health to do an evidence review of published scientific studies to help us to make a more informed decision.  You can see the UA’s analyses for Depression; Generalized Anxiety Disorder; Migraine Headaches; and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on our petition website.   Our literature review found limited scientific evidence to document whether Cannabis is helpful or not for the petitioned conditions or that support permanently adding the petitioned conditions to the statutory list of qualifying debilitating conditions identified in the Act.  In short- I didn’t approve the petitions last year because of the lack of published data regarding the risks and benefits of using Cannabis to treat or provide relief for the petitioned conditions. 

The AZ Medical Marijuana Act requires us to periodically accept petitions to add new medical conditions- and we are once again accepting petitions to add new debilitating medical conditions this week (January 25 – 31) on our petition website. Our medical team will meet after January 31st and will be providing me with an initial analysis regarding whether any petitions we receive meet the screening criteria…  and we’ll be using the UA College of Public Health to review the scientific literature for any that pass the screening test.  Assuming we receive qualified petitions, I’ll need to make a final decision by July 2013.  Our website shows folks how, what, where, and when to submit petitions.

9 comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Medical Marijuana Continuing Medical Education

December 27th, 2012

We’ve been processing Medical Marijuana Registration Cards for about a year and a half now.  One of our primary goals from the start has been to try to build a true medical marijuana program.  One of the keys is setting clear expectations for clinical assessment and medical record review by physicians before they sign a medical marijuana certification.

From the beginning, we’ve been monitoring the types and numbers of certifications written by physicians.  Our Annual Report included an analysis of the kinds of certifications that have been coming in as well as the number of certifications by a physician.  In short- the Report made it clear that we needed some educational opportunities for all classes of physicians.  That day has come.  

We’ve collaborated with the U of A’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health to develop a 5-hour free online Certified Medical Education course regarding the physician’s role and expectations under AZ Medical Marijuana program. It’s available on our website at: www.azdhs.gov/medicalmarijuana/physicians/.  We also asked the 4 Medical Boards to promote the course.  Over time, we’re expecting this physician education to help us get better results when it comes to the certifications.

6 comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Dispensary Zoning Case

December 13th, 2012

Last week a Superior Court judge ordered Maricopa County to process the zoning paperwork that has been submitted by the applicant for the Sun City CHAA.  The Maricopa County Attorney asked for a Stay of the decision while he appealed the case to the Court of Appeals.  This morning, the Superior Court judge denied that request for a Stay.  There’s still an appeal pathway for the Maricopa County Attorney if he asks for a Stay of the decision from the Appellate court while the pre-emption arguments are made at the Appellate level.  For our part- we did not take a position at today’s hearing… and we will simply continue to wait for the applicant in the Sun City CHAA to turn in its zoning paperwork, which would complete the application.  At that point we would process it the same as the other 98.

By the way- AZ now has 3 operating dispensaries, one in Glendale and one in Tucson.  Another dispensary in Cochise County opened today.  Because of the 3 operating dispensaries and provision in the voter approved language that only people that live more than 25 miles away from a dispensary are authorized to cultivate, more than 70% of Arizonans now live in areas where self-cultivation will no longer be permitted.  However, we’re grandfathering the cultivation rights for current card-holders until they renew their card or move into an area that’s within 25 miles of a dispensary.

26 comments »

Posted in Preparedness

Tags:

Dispensary Court Ruling

December 4th, 2012

  

A Superior Court judge ruled today in the dispensary case concerning the applicant in the Sun City CHAA.  The judge ordered the county to begin processing the required zoning paperwork.  This was the only application for this area,  so the next step for the applicant is to submit to us a completed application including  the zoning paperwork from the county.   The Department will process this application the same as the other 98 applications.

16 comments »

Posted in Preparedness

Tags:

Glendale Dispensary Opening Postponed

November 19th, 2012

Last Thursday I announced in a blog post that our team had just returned from a field inspection for a dispensary applicant in Glendale, that there were no major deficiencies, and that we had awarded the dispensary an “Approval to Operate”.   Today the Applicant asked for a short delay in the effective date for their Operating License in order to ensure that things run smoothly when they officially begin operations.  Our team approved a delay in their license’s effective date this afternoon.  

Once the new dispensary begins its operations, we will no longer be approving “requests to cultivate” among new (and renewing) cardholders in most of the metro area… because self-grow (12 plants) is only allowed when the patient lives more than 25 miles from the nearest operating dispensary according to the law.  The vast majority of the Valley is within 25 miles of this new (but not yet operating) dispensary. 

As an FYI…  once a dispensary is operating, it is required by our rules to be “…  operating and available to dispense medical marijuana to qualifying patients and designated caregivers at least 30 hours weekly between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.”

17 comments »

Posted in General, Preparedness

Tags:

First Dispensary

November 15th, 2012

Our team just returned from a field inspection for a dispensary applicant in Glendale.  There were no major deficiencies, and we awarded the dispensary an “approval to operate” late this afternoon.  This is the first dispensary approval to operate we’ve issued in the State.  By law, we’re not allowed to publicly disclose the address. 

The fact that a dispensary is now licensed in the Valley also means that the “self-grow” part of the law will change on Friday.  Beginning tomorrow we’ll be declining new “requests to cultivate” among new cardholders in most of the metro area…  because self-grow (12 plants) is only allowed when the patient lives more than 25 miles from the nearest dispensary.  The vast majority of the Valley is within 25 miles of this new dispensary.   

We’re also adding a new feature to our website to help people figure out if they live within 25 miles of a dispensary.  Because of the changes to the system, we’ just took the it offline.  We’ll work on it over the weekend and most of the application process should be up and running on Monday.

18 comments »

Posted in Preparedness

Tags:

Medical Marijuana @ 1 Year

November 9th, 2012

Our Vital Health Statistics team along with our partners at the UA College of Public Health completed the 1st Annual Report for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Program this week.  You’ll find a wide range of information in the report including data about the demographics and kinds and qualifying conditions of our cardholders, geographic distribution and rates as well as background information on the budget and fund, the various lawsuits, and de-identified information about physicians that are writing certifications. 

Perhaps the most striking thing in the report is that 24 doctors have signed about 80% of the 30,000 or so certifications in Year 1…  and a handful of doctors wrote more than 1,000 certifications.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that these doc’s aren’t acting in the best interests of their patients- but it does give us some insight into which ones we should be focusing on to ensure that they’re meeting our certification expectations.  The report goes into more detail if you’re interested. 

Dr. Cara Christ (our Agency Medical Director) did some outreach this week with the Executive Directors of the 4 medical licensing boards to brainstorm about what we can do as a system to ensure that doctors are truly acting in their patient’s best interests, complying with each licensing board’s expectations, and meeting our standards for certifications.  We’re also looking into doing some more intensive medical education among high frequency certifiers and have signed a contract with the AZ State Board of Pharmacy to help us with surveillance among the certifying physicians.  You can see some of the recommendations at the end of the report. 

Of course…  the info in the Annual Report is just a sub-set of all of the data we have about the program…  and you can see the full array of data and information including our summary monthly reports on our hub website.

12 comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Breastfeeding & Cannabis

September 4th, 2012

Some AZ health care providers and parents have asked questions about whether medical marijuana is safe for use while breastfeeding.  The short answer is no, because the active chemical in marijuana is passed to the baby through breast milk. For this reason, most experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC advise moms not to use marijuana (medical or not) while breastfeeding.   

Tetrahydrocannabinol (the psychoactive ingredient in Cannabis) stays in the body for four to six weeks.  It’s found in the urine of breastfeeding babies whose mothers use marijuana. It’s also fat soluble, which means it builds up with chronic use and can be stored in fat tissue for months. We also know that babies are much more vulnerable than adults to illness, infection, chemicals, and so on. That alone is a good reason to avoid marijuana and anything else potentially harmful that can enter your baby’s body through your milk.  

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has a protocol that you can use to make breastfeeding decisions.  For more information about the effects of marijuana and other medications, go to the National Libraries of Medicine’s LactMed database. For answers to this and other breastfeeding questions, call the ADHS 24-hour breastfeeding hotline at 1-800-833-4642. 

Of course- all sorts of prescription and over-the-counter medicines are also transferred to infants in breast milk- but pediatricians are more familiar with which medicines are safe to take while breastfeeding because they’re tested by the FDA- and most medicine labels discuss breastfeeding.

13 comments »

Posted in General

Tags: