It was last week that the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority released a list of 38 physicians statewide that have registered to recommend medical marijuana to their patients.
According to the Tulsa World, the list had been released “as a courtesy” to potential medicinal marijuana applicants whose own physicians won’t recommend the drug.
It was last month that the state’s Department of Health started to award patient licenses after voters passed a ballot to allow the use of medicinal marijuana in June.
Some residents of Tulsa have said they were turned away from their primary care providers within the Saint Francis and Oklahoma State University Medical Center health systems. This is because the hospitals say their rules require that their doctors follow federal law. Marijuana is still illegal on a federal level.
“There are few, if any, clinical trials comparing medical marijuana to known medical standard practices or evidence-based guidelines,” said a statement from Hillcrest Healthcare System. “Marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, and as such, there have been federal repercussions (for) physicians, including suspension or revocation of their medical license.”
This means there are only nine physicians in the Tulsa area that have registered with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
Dr. Katrina Crader at the UKPsych clinic, one of the registered doctors has said, “I was seeing more and more that patients who tried medical marijuana were on less medication for their anxiety and were not getting addicted to opioids or benzos. They found the medical marijuana by itself was more than enough to control both their addictions and their anxiety. So I thought, ‘This is something I need to do for my patients.'”
According to Crader, many doctors and hospitals want to stay out of the medical marijuana business partly because of problems related to excessive THC intoxication.
