The medical marijuana program in Connecticut is rapidly growing with the amount of registered patients more than doubling in the first year of operation and close to doubling again in the last six months.
“We thought we would get to 6,000 at the end of the year, we are almost at 8,000,” said Jonathan A. Harris, commissioner of Connecticut”™s Department of Consumer Protection.
According to the department, which oversees the medical marijuana program, in June 2014 the program had 1,398 registered patients. A year later the number of patients rose to 4,100 and as of December 30, there were 7,912 patients.
If the trend continues at its current pace of approximately 400 new patients per month, Harris conservatively estimates the program could grow to more than 10,000 patients by the end of the year, particularly as the stigma surrounding the drug dissipates and a growing body of research identifies more medical applications.
The program”™s growth has been steady enough that in June 2015 the department issued a request for applications for new dispensaries, specifically in New Haven and Fairfield counties, where 1,997 and 1,817 patients are currently registered, respectively ”” by far the largest concentrations of patients in the state.
The third largest patient population is in New London with 771 patients.
With two counties comprising more than 50 percent of the total patient population, more dispensaries are needed beyond the single locations that currently serve each county, Harris said.
His office has collected 19 applications, slightly fewer than the 27 received at the program”™s inception, with the expectation that up to three new dispensaries will be selected by the end of March.
Only four companies are permitted to produce medical marijuana in the state, and with supply more than meeting demand there is no immediate need to increase the number of suppliers, though that may change as the program evolves, Harris said.
Angela D”™Amico, owner of the Compassionate Care Center in Bethel, also known as D&B Wellness, has seen her patient base grow dramatically since she began providing medical marijuana in September 2014 when the first crops of medical marijuana were ready for distribution.
At that time her dispensary served 250 patients compared with more than 2,100 now, she said.
“It has been an amazing ride,” she said. “We fought really hard to get here we went through almost every municipality in Fairfield County. Thank god Bethel accepted us.”
Serving patients for little more than a year, D”™Amico said business has been very rewarding with clear successes in patient care including reduction in tumors and treatment of opiate addiction.
“We have hundreds of patients getting off opiates,” she said. “We were able to get them off and they go on concentrated high dose oil and we are having a lot of success.”
Both D”™Amico and Harris cite the ongoing regional and national crisis with opiate and opioid addiction as a key areas where medicinal marijuana has been particularly successful and will likely help propel the case for its effectiveness as medicine.
“It is becoming actually more viable because of the crisis we are having with opioids,” Harris said. “This is a really good alternative in many ways without the problems of addiction and injury and death from overdose.”
Along with an increase in patients, D”™Amico said doctors are also increasingly approaching her dispensary to learn more about the marijuana as medicine.
“We are still working on fighting the stigma,” she said. “The thing is for us to really get out there and educate doctors so they are comfortable and knowledgeable about the medicine.”
However, the number of doctors who have embraced the program is significantly rising, Harris said.
In September 2014, 81 physicians were registered to recommend marijuana to their patients. At the end of December 2015 that number had risen to 405, Harris said.
“There was some understandable ”” and there is still I”™m sure ”” reluctance by physicians,” he said.
A primary source of concern among physicians is the legal grey area in which the state program operates, he said.
Marijuana is a “schedule 1” drug under the Controlled Substances Act, a category reserved for substances considered to have a high potential for abuse and considered to have no medical use including heroin, cocaine and LSD.
“In general at some point they (physicians) would like the federal government to catch up to where the states are moving and at least recognize that marijuana has medical value to it and take it from controlled 1 to controlled 2, which is still highly regulated,” Harris said. “I think they would like that because that would take away their fear of (losing) their federal drug license.”
In June 2015 Harris”™ department launched a marketing campaign via medical journal websites and information sessions to help dispel misunderstandings and get more physicians on board with the program.
D”™Amico cites the campaign as a positive effort in the push to bring marijuana out of the era of “Reefer Madness” and into the field of medicine.
Despite the growing success of the medical program, D”™Amico said anyone who entered the industry in the hopes of cashing in was mistaken, particularly under the current scheduling of the drug.
“We pay most of the profits to the government at the end of the year,” she said.
She considers her business a philanthropic endeavor helping severely ill patients.
With additional qualifications for medical marijuana likely to be added by the end of March, the program is poised for continued expansion, Harris said.
“I can envision it within the next five to 10 years having 2 percent of the population or so that are patients,” he said. “With those numbers you are looking at the 70,000 to 75,000 range. I think that is realistic if things keep going, but there are a lot of moving parts.”
Editor’s note: Story has been updated to reflect Angela D”™Amico as sole owner of Compassionate Care Center.
