Nearly a year ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a medical cannabis bill into law after insisting on significant revisions. As a result, patients with several serious medical conditions were excluded and protections for patients waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn were removed. At least four children who could have benefitted from medical cannabis have died since the bill became law, and no patients have received access to cannabis.
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Sen. John Flanagan[/caption]
If you are a New York resident, please call Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan to ask him to call a vote on S.5086 (sponsored by Sen. Griffo), which would expedite access for certain seriously ill patients.
The Assembly has already passed this important bill in a 130-18 vote! But if the Senate does not act this week, patients will be left in the lurch for many more months.
The Department of Health is moving forward slowly with implementation. Forty-three dispensary applications were filed last week. Experiences in other states indicate it could be a year or longer before the first patient obtains medical cannabis from a state-licensed provider in New York. But others — such as Minnesota — have shown that health departments can move far more quickly when they are required to do so.