WV Medical Cannabis Board to Recommend Smokable Marijuana
The board also will recommend removing a cap on the number of growers, processors, and dispensaries in West Virginia.
The West Virginia Medical Cannabis Advisory Board will recommend to the state Legislature that some patients be able to buy smokable types of marijuana, Health Reporter Erin Beck of the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported Feb. 21.
Following the board's Feb. 20 meeting, she reported that the board "also plans to recommend state lawmakers increase or remove a cap on the number of growers, processors and dispensaries in the state, and allow one company to serve two or three of those roles — meaning a grower could also be a processor, for example."
But the board didn't approve that any medical conditions, including anxiety, be added to the list of conditions for which a patient must be diagnosed before a doctor can recommend medical marijuana, as permitted by the 2017 law that created the board and directed the Department of Health and Human Resources' Bureau for Public Health to oversee the state's medical marijuana system.
Her article says the law states that it is illegal to smoke medical cannabis. The recommendation about smokable forms means patients who are certified medical marijuana patients could possess plants or leaves, such as for use in vaping—the article says Brian Skinner, an attorney for DHHR, "cautioned that was his early interpretation."
The current medical conditions list includes cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and ALS.