A Georgia pharmacy challenges the DEA, and extra.
Georgia
Georgia Pharmacy Defies DEA, Begins Promoting Medical Marijuana to Sufferers. Lawmakers handed a regulation underneath which pharmacies would promote medical marijuana to certified sufferers, However the DEA then despatched letters to dozens of state pharmacies warning them that meting out medical marijuana would put them in violation of the Managed Substances Act, which limits pharmacies licensed by the company to solely promoting managed substances in schedules I-V.
That warning largely put the kibosh on pharmacy medical marijuana gross sales — till now. A drug retailer in Augusta, the Residing Properly Pharmacy, started promoting medical marijuana to registered sufferers final month.
“It is a new frontier,” stated pharmacy proprietor Vic Johnson. “I actually assume pharmacies are a perfect outlet for meting out medical hashish, as a result of in the event you come to my pharmacy already, we are able to speak about what medicines you already are taking.”
He additionally stated that many sufferers are already taking extremely addictive medication, “and the standard of life that may occur once they come off these medicines is simply unbelievable.”
Residing Properly sells merchandise from Botanical Sciences, one among two licensed producers within the state. Botanical Sciences had been offering merchandise to a minimum of three pharmacies earlier than the DEA warning letter final October scared them off.
“All DEA registrants, together with DEA-registered pharmacies, are required to abide by all related federal legal guidelines and rules,” stated the letter from Matthew J. Strait, a DEA deputy assistant administrator within the company’s Diversion Management Division. “A DEA-registered pharmacy might solely dispense managed substances in Schedules II-V of the Managed Substances Act. Neither marijuana nor THC can lawfully be possessed, dealt with, or allotted by any DEA-registered pharmacy.”
What sanctions Johnson might face is unclear. DEA might revoke his license to dispense federally managed substances, or he might face different civil and even legal fees. He says he’s contemplating relinquishing his DEA license, which might imply he might not promote different substances in Schedules II-V of the Managed Substances Act (CSA), together with painkillers, sleeping drugs, and even some cough medicines.
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh Bans Office Discrimination Towards Medical Marijuana Sufferers. On Tuesday, town council gave ultimate approval to an ordinance that bars many employers within the metropolis from discriminating in opposition to registered medical marijuana sufferers. The ordinance blocks employers from drug testing registered sufferers for THC throughout previous to and through employment and brings sufferers into town’s current anti-discrimination code for staff — with some exceptions.
Below the ordinance, metropolis employers can not “discriminate in hiring or employment in opposition to any worker or potential worker due to the person’s lawful standing as a medical marijuana affected person, together with by requiring pre-employment testing for marijuana and such testing throughout employment as a situation of the worker’s employment.”
Among the many exceptions, nevertheless, are staff within the state or federal transportation departments and people who carry firearms as a part of their jobs. The ordinance additionally controversially carves out an exception for staff who’re a part of collective bargaining agreements.
Employers can nonetheless bar staff from utilizing medical marijuana on the job and so they can nonetheless check staff if there’s a suspicion of onsite impairment.
“Gainful employment ought to be accessible to everybody no matter the kind of medical remedy they obtain,” stated Fee on Human Relations Govt Director Rachel Shepherd. “Taking a prescribed treatment for a qualifying incapacity shouldn’t diminish belief in an individual’s skill to be a dependable and productive worker, nor ought to it have an effect on their skill to be thought-about within the hiring course of.”
