Colorado officials alarmed by increasing medical marijuana registry numbers

More than eight years after Colorado voters approved the use of medical marijuana for patients like Gallegos, who suffer from debilitating medical conditions, the issue has again taken center stage. The state is seeking to crack down on caregiver/patient ratios at the same time federal officials are debating whether to continue raiding med-pot dispensaries in states that allow them.

Against that backdrop are the numbers: Colorado’s medical marijuana registry has swelled to nearly 5,000 patients. In just the last year, the number of patients registering to use the drug more than doubled.

Colorado voters approved Amendment 20 in November 2000, allowing the use of marijuana for certain debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and severe pain and nausea. The law took effect in 2001. Patients approved for medical marijuana use and designated caregivers register with the state and can possess as much as 2 ounces of the drug and as many as six marijuana plants.

Since 2004, the number of patients applying to the registry has jumped an astounding 800 percent, from 512 to 4,693 last year.

This same kind of scaremongering is going on in Oregon, too, as if there is a magic number after which there are just “too many” medical marijuana patients.  When the numbers get above that imaginary benchmark, supposedly there must be some abuse in the system, some fraud, too many people getting medical marijuana cards “just to get high”.  Nobody ever considers that perhaps the numbers rise so quickly when people discover a much safer, more effective medicine with less side effects.  Even though careful controls are placed in these states to require doctor’s sign-off on all medical marijuana patients, these officials think too many people are “faking it”.

One commenter named Jonas put the 800% increase into rational perspective:

Yes, an astounding increase from .012% of Coloradoans to .11% over 4 years. Crazy, man, crazy!

Here’s another way to look at it.  In my state, we have over 20,000 patients registered in ten years.  In Oregon we have a database called “OSCaR” that registers all the reported cases of cancer in the state.  Every year, there are about 17,000 new cases.  Every year there are approximately 300 new HIV/AIDS cases.  Throw in glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Hepatitis C, and Alzheimer’s disease and you’ve easily got 20,000 potential patients every year.

Then you add in chronic nausea and chronic pain, both of which are treated very well with cannabis and fairly common in the population, judging by the plethora of TV ads for pain relievers, anti-inflammatories, and indigestion remedies, and it is easy to see why patient registries have grown so quickly.  It’s because of the time-honored capitalist maxim that consumers will flock to you if you build a better mousetrap, and for millions who’ve gotten ineffective relief from side-effect-laden pharmaceuticals, cannabis is the best mousetrap ever.