ANNAPOLIS, Md. — While Maryland is on pace to have one of the slowest rollouts of medical marijuana in the country, patients across the state must skirt the law if they want to treat themselves.
It has been more than 900 days since former Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the bill legalizing medical marijuana in the state.
Dispensaries are anticipated to open by next summer, but legal fights with the Natalie M. LaPrade Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission over licenses to grow the plant has many concerned that patients will have to wait longer.
One company that applied for a growing license but was denied has filed suit against the commission, with two others planning to do so, all saying the licensing process was unfair and improper.
The Legislative Black Caucus, concerned about a lack of minority ownership among preliminary licensees, plans to introduce emergency legislation in the next General Assembly session calling for the commission to restart the process.
While state officials grapple with who should grow, process and sell the drug, some Maryland patients are suffering — or medicating themselves outside the law.
“I was 26 years old before I tried pot for the first time, and it was strictly as pain management,” said Rachel Perry-Crook, executive director of Maryland NORML, an organization that promotes marijuana legalization.
Perry-Crook, now 30, said she has used marijuana for four years to help alleviate pain from a number of different ailments, including undergoing four back surgeries and a spinal fusion. She has a connective tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, she said, that causes hypermobility, leaving her body in constant pain.
She said she turned to marijuana after years of taking a prescription opioid medication meant to treat severe pain.
“I was taking Dilaudid for years —very high dosages of Dilaudid to the point where it would put a lot of people in a coma,” Perry-Crook told the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service. “I looked at myself one day, and I realized I was going to turn into a junkie if I didn’t find something else to manage my pain.”
