This week the Utah Department of Health started implementing a law that increases access to medical cannabis cards for qualified patients.
“Medical cannabis has a place here, and it does help patients who need it,” said Hoang Nguyen, the CEO of Dragonfly Wellness to 2KUTV.
Under the Utah law, eligible patients can get a recommendation from their physician who is not registered with the state to recommend medical cannabis.
About 800 prescribers have gone through a state-required training course to recommend medical cannabis.
Dubbed the limited medical provider program, it does not require a licensed MD, DO, APRN, PA or podiatrist to go through a medical cannabis training course, which opens the possibility of recommendations from the 21,000 licensed prescribers across the state.
The process would begin when patients meet a physician in-person to verify they have a qualifying condition and complete a state form.
“Until it’s more generally accepted in this community, in this society, it’s going to have to be up to patients to go and advocate for themselves and start the conversations with their medical provider,” Nguyen added.
Prescribers who don’t take the training course are however capped at recommending to 15 patients.
“We’ll just make sure they stick to 15 and our staff doesn’t approve any cards that are connected to a provider already over 15,” said Rich Oborn, who runs the state’s Center for Medical Cannabis.
“We would hope they would research recommending medical cannabis just like they would do for any other drug they would recommend,” Oborn added.
