Pubdate: Fri, 08 Jan 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Jesse McKinley, New York Times

FIRST MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES OPEN IN NEW YORK

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York joined the ranks of nearly half the states 
Thursday in allowing the use of medical marijuana with the opening of 
eight dispensaries statewide, serving a variety of syrups, 
concentrates, and other nonsmokable forms of the drug.

How many patients will initially visit those dispensaries is uncertain.

Officials at the state's Department of Health said that by Wednesday 
only 51 patients had qualified for the drug. Such certification, 
however, began only Dec. 23 and requires the approval of a physician 
who has registered with the state.

Regardless of their clients, the facilities were planning to open 
across the state, including one on East 14th Street in Manhattan. 
Other locations are in Westchester County; Kingston; Albany; two in 
the Buffalo area; and two in the Finger Lakes regions, including near Syracuse.

The opening of the dispensaries, allowed under a 2014 law signed by 
Governor Andrew Cuomo, comes after years of lobbying by lawmakers on 
behalf of patients for whom the drug is a palliative to debilitating illnesses.

Even after the law's adoption, some supporters of the concept 
criticized its stringent strictures and regulations, including that 
only a limited number of conditions qualify for medical use of marijuana.

The drug may not be smoked in New York, a stipulation of Cuomo's approval.

"I think the glass is three-fourths full, maybe two-thirds full, and 
that is that it is going to benefit a lot of very seriously ill 
people," said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat, 
who first introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana in the 
mid-1990s. "But I think we can do better."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom