New York’s Medicinal Cannabis Legalisation Plan to Exclude Poor Patients

Last summer New York approved a new law for the regulation of medicinal marijuana, set to go into effect in 2016, when state authorities will implement a program allowing cannabis consumption for the treatment of certain diseases.

However, according to the agency IPS this program will exclude underprivileged patients. This week a public forum was held in the borough of the Bronx, NY, where a range of different activist organisations expressed their concern regarding the implementation of the law, pointing out that it includes no requirement for medical insurance to cover treatment featuring medicinal marijuana. Medicaid, the government medical insurance program in the US for the neediest, will not include cannabis in its coverage.

Julie Netherland, with the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), an organisation opposed to prohibitionist policies, called for the approved law to include a support plan for those with limited incomes.

Another criticism from these organizations is that medicinal marijuana will only be cleared for use by those suffering from a limited number of ten diseases,these including cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Meanwhile, people with anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or rheumatoid arthritis, will not be eligible for treatment, prompting many to ask the authorities to broaden the approved criteria.

Organisations also complain that only 20 establishments in the whole state will be providing marijuana. “It's insufficient to satisfy the patients’ demand,” stated Julie Netherland.

----------------

With information from Marijuana and IPS News.