Earlier this week, Minnesota regulators announced an expansion to the state’s medical marijuana program, as they added chronic pain and age-related macular degeneration to the list of conditions that can make a person eligible for treatment. The state’s Health Department also said they planned to expand to more sites so patients can have easier access to medical marijuana.
This is a large expansion for the relatively young medical cannabis program here in Minnesota, which began back in 2014. Back then, only nine conditions made the original list of approved conditions. Now, the program has expanded to include conditions like:
- PTSD
- Cancer
- Sleep Apnea
- Chronic Pain
- Macular Degeneration
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said the new conditions were added to give individuals more ways to deal with debilitating illnesses.
“Minnesota’s medical cannabis program tracks patient experiences so we can learn about the real-world benefits and downsides of using medical cannabis for various conditions,” she said in a statement. “The bottom line is that people suffering from these serious conditions may be helped by participating in the program, and we felt it was important to give them the opportunity to seek that relief.”
How To Get Medical Marijuana For Chronic Pain
The changes don’t go into effect until August, so you’ll still need to wait until the second half of next year in order to get medical marijuana for chronic pain. Under the program’s regulations, you’ll also need to get a doctor’s diagnosis in order to be eligible for the medical cannabis program. The state believes it will be easier for patients to get medical approval for chronic pain than for intractable pain, which was already on the approved list, because intractable pain is defined as pain that cannot be removed, only managed, and many doctors are hesitant to slap the label of incurable on a patient.
The state’s acting medical cannabis program director believes there will be a sizable boost in the amount of patients in the program once August rolls around.
“We do know that 20 percent of the U.S. adult population suffers from chronic pain, and so we could apply those numbers to Minnesota’s population, and of course it would be a smaller subset of folks that would be even interested in trying our program,” said program director Chris Tholkes.
It’s interesting to note that while chronic pain and age-related macular degeneration made the list of approved conditions, four other conditions were rejected. Those conditions that didn’t make the cut were anxiety, insomnia, psoriasis and traumatic brain injury.
We’ll continue to share news related to this change as August approaches as we get ready for what we expect to be a sizable shift in how certain patients with chronic pain try to manage their condition.