Tulsa’s first Rx pot clinic opens

Rival industry group calls move premature

TULSA — The city’s first medical cannabis clinic set up shop first thing Wednesday, mere hours after Oklahoma voters approved State Question 788.

A steady stream of people followed the marijuana leaf signs and big, green fabric banners waving in the wind along busy South Yale Avenue and walked into Tulsa Higher Care Clinic. The clinic owners’ cellphones rang incessantly and quickly became jammed with voicemails and hundreds of missed call notifications.

But without any patient or business licensing programs established in Oklahoma, what exactly are they selling?

“Your initial appointment is $250. That covers your first appointment and right now, because the state doesn’t have their portal set up, it also covers a follow-up appointment,” said coowner Whitney Wehmeyer, explaining the clinic’s services to a couple of men in construction work crew T-shirts.

What that fee buys is access to a doctor who could recommend medical marijuana and that recommendation can be used to eventually apply for a medical marijuana license from the state, not the drug itself.

Many who showed up at Tulsa Higher Care Clinic on Wednesday had assumed they could get medical marijuana there.

“That’s the biggest misconception — that we dispense weed,” Wehmeyer said. “It’s no different than any other medication. Your doctor gives you a prescription and then you go to a pharmacy. Your doctor doesn’t have a box of pills in the back to hand out.”

Patients will be seen by Dr. Jason Sims, coowner of the clinic, whose primary job is as a hospitalist at Cleveland Area Hospital, west of Tulsa. He also has run a weight-loss clinic, medical spa and neuropathy pain clinic, he said.

“Ninety percent of the people who came in are either on Medicaid, Medicare or have doctors at St. John, Saint Francis, and Hillcrest and they’re telling us that their doctors say their hospitals have said they will not let them write prescriptions or recommendations. We are the alternative if you don’t have a doctor,” said Wehmeyer.

Sims said he wanted to get in on the ground floor of Oklahoma’s medical cannabis industry because he has seen the benefits first-hand in his own wife and his own patients.

“A lot of doctors just don’t understand cannabis because they haven’t been around it. I don’t do it, but marijuana use has been around for as long as we’ve had written history. I want my patients to have alleviation of pain. I don’t want my patients to get high,” Sims said.

“I have quite a few patients who have used cannabis and CBD (Cannabidiol) with success. My own wife has chronic pain problems and the only thing that has ever helped her is cannabis — she got off of the pain medications she was on since she was a little kid because of it.”

A man in his early 40s wearing business attire was one of the many walk-ins who came to get information about the clinic’s offerings Wednesday afternoon.

Wehmeyer told him: “We are currently prescribing for the 50 qualifying conditions that are approved in other states.”

The man, who did not want to be identified, said he has had success in using medical marijuana in other states he has visited for pain management and insomnia.

“I definitely wasn’t going to miss the vote and I think it passed because a lot of people have had success with it or read about other people having success with it,” he said.

Tulsa Higher Care Clinic is a member of the Oklahoma Cannabis Business Alliance. But the leader of a competing group, New Health Solutions Oklahoma, warned against Oklahomans forking over any cash before lawmakers put in place a host of necessary state regulations for the state’s fledgling medical marijuana program.

“I think it’s incredibly premature for people to be opening businesses and expecting a profit when none of those guidelines are in place and before we have protocols set forth,” said Bud Scott, executive director of the trade association that provided guidance and financial backing to the Yes on 788 campaign. “Paying people money for a physician’s recommendation when they don’t even have the processes (for licensing) nailed down is very premature.”

New Health Solutions has been representing the medical cannabis industry in lobbying efforts with Oklahoma lawmakers, as Scott said he has five years’ experience on the policy matter in Colorado.

“We are positioning ourself to work with the (Oklahoma State) Department of Health to travel the state to offer listening sessions to educate the public. This is pretty incumbent on the industry, but it’s going to take a little time. We just passed the state question last night!” Scott said. “We think it’s incredibly disappointing that there’s groups popping up trying to profit off of this.”

Asked whether patients are advised about the likely delays in getting access to legal, medical marijuana products, Wehmeyer said all patients will get that message loud and clear when they meet with Dr. Sims.

“There is a huge discrepancy in getting your medical card and getting your medication. Growers are not going to be growing at a minimum of four to six months,” she said. “We sit down in their private appointment and explain exactly how it works. They have alternatives like CBD that they can use now. We inform patients on what their options are, but the majority of our patients have been waiting for years. They just want that medical card.”