Visit Dr DeCosmo in St Petersburg to see if you qualify for the Florida Medical Cannabis Program. The Florida Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014 / Amendment 2 allows Florida state certified doctors to order medical cannabis derivative products for patients with a qualifying medical condition.

Medical marijuana doctors in Pinellas County are now seeing patients. Patients throughout St Petersburg and Florida must establish or have an established relationship for a minimum of 90 days with a prescribing physician to be issued a medical marijuana card.

CBD and THC are components of the marijuana plant. They are two of many constituents in the plant and they are the most well studied and understood. CBD has the main effect of stabilizing the nervous system. It can help with many issues including:

It is considered to be psychoactive, i.e. it can get you high. THC is the other main component of medical marijuana and is also good to treat many issues. It is shown to benefit in cancer, glaucoma, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency), pain, multiple sclerosis and nerve pain. It is considered the psychoactive component of the medical marijuana and can give you a high effect.

Medical marijuana has been in the news a lot across the nation in the past 10 or so years and even more so in the Florida news for the past two years. In 2014, Florida passed laws to permit the limited use of medical marijuana.

Amendment 2 was passed by voters and came into effect the first of this year. This constitutional amendment allows for medical marijuana to be used for many more diagnoses than the original statute. The legislature is working on rules and regulations that should permit Amendment 2 to be fully integrated by September, 2017.

The laws regarding the recommending (we do not call it prescribing) of medical marijuana (MM) are somewhat strict but are workable. I will review them in tabular form for clarity.

• You must first see a doctor who is registered with the DOH Office of Compassionate Use and with whom you have had a professional relationship.

• Once recommendation is begun, the doctor will review an Informed Consent Form in detail regarding the nuances of MM.

• The next step is to register you with the Medical Marijuana Use registry which will contain your demographics and the MM recommendation.

• Once all that is done, your doctor will give you a Patient Registry number which you send in to the Medical Marijuana Use Registry and they will then send you your patient ID card. Then you will bring the card to any of the MM dispensaries in the state. The last step, the dispensary will provide you with your MM.

The process is certainly not a simple one and the government was taken to task to keep this program a safe one as far as the public was concerned. Dr DeCosmo has found that the MM to be quite effective at relieving pain, insomnia, anxiety and a myriad of other issues.

Undoubtedly, the situation will change as we get better experience with this program. This year stands to be quite momentous regarding the issues surrounding the safe use of MM. Stay tuned…

Click for the Florida state website for the Office of Compassionate Use