Connecticut’s Regulation Review Committee voted to add several new medical conditions for adult patients as well as for younger people suffering from muscular dystrophy and brittle bone disease.
Adult patients will now be able to use medical marijuana to treat a series of conditions that produce a great deal of pain including migraines, intractable headaches, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, facial pain and post-therapeutic neuralgia. This new round of additions brings Connecticut’s MMJ qualifying conditions up to thirty.
Connecticut officials do not have an exact number of how many new patients will seek MMJ recommendations for these newly added conditions, but they are expecting a huge increase to the state’s current 27,630 medical marijuana patients.
As it is, Connecticut’s registered MMJ patient count shot up 46% in the past 12 months.
There are nearly 1,000 doctors licensed to recommend MMJ in Connecticut, but only nine dispensaries.
The eight newly approved medical conditions will be submitted to the Secretary of the State’s office for final approval, with the expansions to be legal within a week after approval. Patients suffering from these conditions can then apply immediately thereafter for MMJ recommendations.
“Now that these regulations have been accepted, more patients with severe medical conditions will have access to medical marijuana as a treatment option,” Consumer Protection Commissioner Michelle H. Seagull said in a statement reported by the Connecticut Mirror.
“I want to thank our Board of Physicians and the committee for their thoughtful consideration of these conditions. I continue to be proud of the careful way that our program has expanded, and its commitment to a true medical model,” said Ms. Seagull.
In 2011, Connecticut decriminalized the possession of small amounts of cannabis and legalized medical marijuana in 2012.
