Unlike other parts of her State of the State rollout, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s scheme to solve “inequity” in access to medical marijuana was not meant as joke — yet it surely is.
Deep in the policy book released with the speech is a plan to open a “Center for Excellence for Cannabis Care and Health Equity” to “train clinicians on cannabis pharmacology, evidence-based care, and patient counseling” in minority neighborhoods.
Why? Well: “Black and Brown neighborhoods in New York tend to have more recreational cannabis dispensaries and fewer medical cannabis dispensaries,” and so “are less likely to have access to therapeutic products or even be aware that these medical products exist,” the book reads.
Huh?
Medical marijuana may tend to have less THC and more CBD than the average recreational product, but weed is now a multibillion-dollar industry in New York; with a pot shop on every corner, there’s something for every taste, purpose and potency preference.
We have no “skunk scarcity”: A cannabis connoisseur complaining of nausea or pain can get a Willy-Wonka-level variety of options, from salves to mouth sprays to sodas, in virtually any neighborhood in New York.
Lack of access to weed isn’t a problem anywhere in the Big Apple, and as shops keep sprouting up statewide, New Yorkers are more likely to be complaining of too much toking, not too little.
As for training doctors on how to inform patients on safe, effective cannabis use: The politicians already let that cat out of the bag: When the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo legalized recreational pot, they basically made medical operators obsolete and gave every over-21 adult the ability to self-medicate.
Seems Hochul is placating the medical-MJ operators (who’d need to pay $20 million fee to legally sell non-medicinal pot), though the “equity” noise suggests this is also a bone to the crowd that’s obsessed with making marijuana legalization a race issue.
Hochul’s office brags that her center would be “first in the nation,” probably because this lefty lunacy could only be possible in New York.
It’s an utter boondoggle — or boondoobie.
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