Could Recreational Marijuana Conflict With Medical Marijuana

Could having a recreational marijuana program hurt the medical marijuana community? An analyst from GreenWave Advisors is under the impression that legalized retail marijuana will disturb the emerging medical sector. For the states that have legalized recreational marijuana, the number of medical marijuana patients has dropped. It was long speculated that many individuals who just wanted to smoke pot stated they have a medical condition such as chronic pain in order to legally buy and use marijuana.

Having some form of Chronic discomfort or pain is generally the most common qualifying condition and this is the group that drops in patient counts when retail marijuana becomes available The analysts’ report highlights that the amount of patient decelerated in Colorado, Oregon and Washington D.C. Washington state does not count patients and Alaska patients can grow their medicine at home making it more difficult to keep count.

GreenWave wrote, “Though Arizona permits only medicinal use, new cardholder applications were down sharply in May, perhaps in anticipation of a favorable election outcome for recreational use.” Another data point that supports the idea that some chronic pain sufferers are really retail customers is that medical marijuana spending patterns follow retail purchase habits.

Sales among recreational marijuana users spike during the holiday season in December, summer and the classic 420 celebrations. This isn’t to imply that all patients who suffer from pain are really retail customers, although it does suggest that the medical market could be smaller than previously thought.

The GreenWave report also indicates that as long as the DEA leaves marijuana as a schedule 1 drug, doctors will continue to stay away from recommending the drug, further limiting the medical market. GreenWave anticipates that as recreational marijuana markets begin to shrink the medical markets, various states will start to merge the regulatory oversight of both the recreational and medical marijuana markets.

The report stated, “Redundancy in oversight and enforcement mechanisms will be recognized as costly confusing.” The report is careful to highlight that it isn’t predicting the downfall of the medical marijuana market. The group believes that as new, and more targeted drugs become available and doctors become more involved, the medical sector will recalibrate.