BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As Louisiana’s medical marijuana program edges closer to kickoff, only two doctors in the state have applied for permission to dispense the drug, raising questions about whether patients struggling with chronic pain and suffering will gain access to the treatment they lobbied so hard to get.
One application for the permit required to offer medical-grade marijuana to patients has been approved for a Baton Rouge physician, while the other application is under review, according to information provided to The Associated Press by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners in response to a public records request.
The pharmacist who sponsored the state’s 2015 and 2016 therapeutic marijuana laws said he’s not worried just yet.
STATE BY STATE: Louisiana Cannabis News
Sen. Fred Mills, a St. Martin Parish Republican, hopes to see an uptick in permit requests from doctors early next year when the growing operations have started, medical marijuana sales are only months away, and patients start asking how they’ll get it.
“I feel that the people I’ve met, the 400 or 500 families of people who have the debilitating diseases, they are going to go to their physicians and say, ‘Please, I want to try this,’” Mills said.
Vincent Culotta, a doctor and executive director of the Board of Medical Examiners, didn’t offer an explanation for the low interest physicians have shown so far, saying in an email he had “no thoughts at this time, no patterns available to analyze.”
