Doctor Network Addresses Concerns for Arizona and Nevada State Medical Marijuana Programs
New York, NY (PRWEB) August 18, 2014 -- Patients in the yet fully functioning Arizona medical marijuana program may now have a legal opportunity to purchase their medicine thanks to their friendly neighbors to the North West. According to Chad Weston, bureau chief of the Nevada Division of Public & Behavioral Health, the state’s newly designed medical marijuana program will honor Arizona registration cards to allow patients to obtain medicine.
To our knowledge no other state is known to have yet serviced Arizona patients. Just last year Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed legislation will allow for up to 66 dispensing locations to operate around the state. Patients can expect the first dispensaries to open in Clark County early next year.
The Nevada medical marijuana law allows dispensary owners to honor out of state identification cards so long as it is issued by the state and that state has an official database that “allows the division and medical marijuana dispensaries in Nevada to access the database,” Nevada officials hope to have an interstate access agreement in place by 2016.
Sadly according to Will Humble, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, “Our system is specific to AZ cardholders and dispensaries,” adding that he doesn’t believe such a system could be put in place. MarijuanaDoctors.com has created a solution to this potential road block in what will otherwise be a great step toward patient access to safe medicine. “The state can easily implement a secure API that would allow other states to pull the data being requested by law enforcement and dispensaries. This is something we at MarijuanaDoctors.com have already spent quite a bit of time developing,” says the company’s Chief Operating Officer John Nicoalzzo.
By having already established credible, efficient, and widely used verification systems to allow dispensaries, law enforcement, and other necessary parties to check the legitimacy of a patient’s recommendation, MarijuanaDoctors.com is confident and ready to work with any state that needs a verification built specifically to fit its needs. Mr. Nicolazzo elaborates “I look at this as being something similar to what the National Driver Registry does through the Department of Transportation. Just how law enforcement officials can check the licenses of out-of-state drivers for suspensions or warrants, the same should be done for medical cannabis patients.”
The importance of a constantly functioning verification system is vital to the success of any working medical marijuana program because it provides patients and physicians with needed protections should the status of a patient’s status in the program come into question. All too often patients are given the rough end of the bargain when dealing with law enforcement as their state lacks the proper infrastructure to allow verification of their enrollment in the program. The system created by MarijuanaDoctors.com fixes this problem and as a result provides patients and physicians with peace of mind that currently eludes them.
John Nicolazzo, MD MCN Co., Inc., 1-888-392-9772, [email protected]
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