Doctors flock for medical marijuana

Patient demand doubles number OK’d by state

Hundreds of Florida doctors are signing up to get the state’s blessing to prescribe medical marijuana, records show.

On Friday, the medical marijuana industry obtained its guidelines with the passage of a bill out of the Florida Legislature. And during the past six months, the number of doctors able to give their patients the OK has more than doubled from 374 to 819.

The jump is similar in South Florida: The number of doctors has swelled from 130 to 303 in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, showing they are preparing for the industry to settle into the region.

Lately, Dr. Bruce Stratt has been getting more calls about medical marijuana from

patients at his West Boca clinic, LifeBoost, which specializes in treating age-related ailments. That prompted him to get qualified by the state two weeks ago so he could make recommendations for medical marijuana.

“There’s definitely a demand,” Stratt said.

Doctors have to pay up to $1,000 to take a course in order to get qualified. The course has to be renewed every two years.

Under current law, when patients get their doctors’ approval, their doctors must then register them with the state as well as submit a treatment plan before a patient can get a medical marijuana ID card.

“It’s pretty labor-intensive for doctors compared to other treatments,” Stratt said.

Florida voters in November approved legalizing marijuana statewide for debilitating medical conditions, such as cancer, epilepsy, HIV, AIDS and glaucoma, among others.

Talks failed among state lawmakers this year as they tried to put the voter-approved amendment into law, but the Legislature decided to put the issue back on the table Wednesday as part of its special session.

State Sen. Rob Bradley, a Republican from Fleming Island, introduced the new bill, which he said expands research and access. The state Department of Health estimates 500,000 people could qualify under the constitutional amendment voters put in place last year.

Meanwhile, several governments in South Florida put moratoriums on dispensaries in place while they waited to see what the state decided.

“We don’t want to do anything until we know what we have to do with the state and the county,” Boca Raton spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said of the city’s yearlong moratorium that was renewed late last year.

Palm Beach County, Delray Beach, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs are among some local governments to recently push pause on allowing dispensaries to open.

Cities such as Hollywood, Parkland and Wilton Manors already have set their own guidelines for where dispensaries can open and how many can exist within town limits.

Some businesses in South Florida are readying for the medical marijuana industry to move into the region.

Omni Medical Services Florida, which has similar operations in Michigan and Ohio, is an advocacy company that hosted its first Palm Beach County consultation clinic on June 3 in Boca.

With a doctor on hand, the company hosts one-day sessions at locations across the state to pair people with a physician who can give them approval.

“The patient gets in touch with us, and we give them a run-down of how the process works,” said Omni Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Marty Winer.

The company also has a session in Fort Lauderdale every two weeks. Winer said he hopes to add more in Boca as well as other parts of the state as demand grows.

Winer and other advocates look at medical marijuana as another option for patients who might otherwise need opioids to manage chronic pain.

“One way of reducing opioid addiction is maybe prescribing less opioids and prescribing more medical marijuana,” state Sen. Kevin Rader, a Democrat from Boca Raton, told Boca residents Tuesday at a town hall meeting.

But some doctors don’t think the issue is as clear-cut.

“I feel like there are way too many issues with this, and I would not prescribe it myself,” said Dr. Shawn Baca, a rheumatologist who also heads the Palm Beach County Medical Society.

The medical society is a nonprofit that represents about 1,500 physicians and has advocated at the state level for tighter rules on prescribing medical marijuana.

Among some of the concerns, Baca said there should be more screening for minors as well as greater disclosure of the composition of the marijuana that growers are cultivating.

“As a physician, you don’t know what [patients] are getting right now,” Baca said.

Federal law still labels marijuana as a controlled substance, which Stratt said could be a deterrent for some doctors. But like other drugs physicians prescribe, Stratt said marijuana would just be another to screen for.

“I think that’s my job,” Stratt said. “I have patients all the time ask for sleeping pills or opioids or pain pills. You have to be a gatekeeper for all of that.”