[V]ermont’s medical cannabis dispensaries are hoping lawmakers will loosen industry regulations to make it easier for state residents to become patients and increase the amount of product the businesses can sell.
Dispensaries are backing a bill proposed by senators that would roll back patient regulations and which they say would help keep their business model sustainable at a time when it could soon be threatened by policy changes.
Dispensaries say they have lost business since the state legalized cannabis possession in July, and they’re worried that with the possibility of lawmakers legalizing recreational sales as early as this year, they could lose even more.
But some people are concerned about loosening requirements for medical dispensaries and their patients, and say they don’t want to deregulate the industry just because dispensaries are concerned about their share of the state’s cannabis market.
The legislation, S.117, would scrap a list of medical conditions patients must have for a doctor to prescribe them cannabis, and a requirement that patients have relationship with a doctor for at least three months before they can receive a cannabis prescription.
It would also increase the amount of cannabis dispensaries could sell patients each month from two ounces to three, and permit medical marijuana patients from other states to make purchases at dispensaries when they’re in Vermont.
Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Shayne Lynn, the executive director of Champlain Valley Dispensary, the state’s largest medical cannabis dispensary, pointed out that the state’s five dispensaries now serve 5,300 patients — less than 1 percent of the state’s population.
In other states with medical cannabis programs, he said that number is closer to 3 percent.
And if recreational cannabis sales were legalized, Vermont’s medical program would be competing against a market that could draw up to 80,000 customers.
“The reality of that business model is unbalanced,” Lynn said.
“And I think some of this approach is how to find a level playing field as things start to change here to ensure that we can have some efficiencies in our operations,” he said.
Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P Chittenden, said he was concerned that passing the legislation would be “putting a thumb on the scale” in effort to help medical dispensaries survive in a more crowded market.
“The dispensaries I understand are now anxious about their market share,” he said. “I don’t think that we can be in the business of ensuring a market. I think the concern should be the medical situation of the patients.”
Lynn said that purpose of the changes would also be to make sure patients could access more of the products that they need, when they need them.
But the Vermont Medical Society raised concerns about proposed changes: particularly making it easier for doctors to prescribe the drug.
Jessa Barnard, the organization’s executive director, said for example, that she opposed eliminating the list of specific conditions which cannabis could treat.
“Expansion shouldn’t be for market share concerns … but for evidence-based needs,” Barnard said.
In addition to rolling back patient regulations, the legislation would also require the Agency of Agriculture to test medical dispensaries’ products for potency and contaminants.
While dispensaries now test their own products for potency as a practice, there are no regulations in place mandating third party quality control testing.
An investigation by VTDigger found Champlain Valley Dispensary and others have long grown cannabis that has been contaminated with mold. Inhaling mold spores through smoke has been found to cause serious lung infections in people with compromised immune systems.
As lawmakers are debating legislation that would establish a legal recreational market, medical dispensaries have lobbied to become the first businesses that would be able to sell the substance to the public.
Earlier this month, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against a measure that would have allowed dispensaries to have the first bite of a legal cannabis market.
