Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Copyright: 2015 North Coast Journal
Contact:  http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

WHAT'S UP, DOC?

I got my 215 card on a drippy early afternoon. It took about an hour 
and a half, but a good portion of that was spent in the waiting room 
- - even though I had an appointment. The whole business felt doctory 
and friendly - if a little rougher around the edges than your average 
clinic visit.

Let's back up. I, like many people who grew up in Humboldt County, 
started experimenting with marijuana for fun in my teens. That 
continued through my early 20s until I realized that getting high 
just wasn't for me - it brought on, or at least exacerbated, anxiety 
and a general young-adult malaise.

So why, now, seek a medical marijuana recommendation? I'll admit, at 
least part of it was simple curiosity. I'd heard from several people 
it was remarkably easy - show up claiming some malady, pay your fee 
and boom, it's legal for you to grow, possess and purchase pot. 
Larger motivation was for work, having taken on the pot beat. I've 
been to events with 215 areas I'm not allowed to visit. I want to see 
what the patients see; to visit dispensaries and experience what they 
experience (maybe without the high). I wanted to see behind the 
curtain of a fascinating and still relatively new medical industry.

I'm a generally healthy person. But I had no intention of trying to 
deceive or exaggerate my way into a recommendation, so I walked into 
the clinic that day with two problems I suspected might get me 
approved for medical pot. First, I tweaked my back in my late teens 
playing basketball, and it's been an off-and-on problem since. 
Second, I've got general anxiety - another thing that comes and goes 
depending on what life's throwing at me.

I don't consider either of those undiagnosed afflictions 
debilitating. Would they be enough for me to get a doctor's 
recommendation for marijuana?

Stepping into the clinic (which I won't identify), was like entering 
a doctor's office in an ever-so-slightly alternate universe. I filled 
out my paperwork on an overstuffed couch instead of a stiff chair. 
Posters hung on the walls in place of nutritional charts. It all felt 
a bit slapdash, as though they hadn't really cleared the remnants of 
whatever business previously occupied the space. But my nerves eased 
as the young men checking in patients chatted amiably with the six to 
eight other people - all men, ranging from early 20s to late 60s, 
from work boots to dress shoes - who came and went in the time I was there.

When it was my turn, I was ushered back to see a nurse, who sat under 
an Einstein poster asking me questions that I had mostly already 
answered on the medical forms. "What's the pain like? Is it chronic? 
Have you treated in the past with marijuana?" She asked if I knew 
about CBDs (THC's non-stoney, potentially medicinal cousin present in 
certain strains - I did), and lamented that marijuana remained 
illegal at all. She took my pulse, my blood pressure.

Then, into another little room, where I sat in front of a computer 
monitor waiting to Skype with a doctor. After a couple minutes he 
popped up on the screen, introduced himself, read my ailments back to 
me, reiterated some legal language and boom: a 12-month 
recommendation in less than 60 seconds.

Was it easy? Yes. The assembly line approach felt impersonal, but 
that makes sense, given that it's vastly different from other health 
care practices. People don't go there for a thorough evaluation or a 
breakdown of exactly what marijuana product is best for them; it's 
just a middle step between patients' primary care provider and their 
dispensaries.

It's like getting your doctor to acknowledge something's wrong, then 
going to the pharmacist to ask what will help. Luckily, we have 
top-notch marijuana pharmacists; in a year of writing the Week in 
Weed, I've met a lot of dispensary owners, employees and advocates 
who care deeply about getting the right medicine to the right people.

More than 2,000 people have been issued medical marijuana cards in 
Humboldt County since 2004, according to the California Department of 
Public Health - 78,000 statewide.

Many of those cardholders probably had a plan when they walked out of 
the clinic. Maybe others, like me, felt it was more of an exercise - 
a potential tool - than the beginning of a treatment plan. Others 
wanted to expand their options, to explore how marijuana could help. 
With the right pharmacist, they'll be in good hands.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom