NY Expanding Medical Cannabis Program: Nurses to Recommend, Dispensaries to Deliver
New York’s Health Department has announced that the state’s medical cannabis program will soon be expanded to allow nurses to recommend the medicine, and to allow dispensaries to deliver it.
Under current law only physicians can recommend medical cannabis to patients, but only around 600 of roughly 80,000 physicians in the state have begun recommending the medicine to their patients. The expansion is meant to make it easier for people who could use cannabis to have it recommended to them by allowing nurses to recommend it; this will take effect after a 45-day comment period.
The the expansion also allows dispensaries to deliver medical cannabis to patients; the state plans to send a letter to dispensaries within a week telling them that they must soon start delivering to patients who can’t leave their homes. Deliveries are expected deliveries are expected to start by the end of September.
The Health Department is also considering adding chronic pain as a medical cannabis conditions and greatly expanding the number of dispensaries allowed throughout the state.
