The Georgia Division of Public Well being (DPH) has been miscounting the variety of medical hashish sufferers and caregivers enrolled in its low-THC oil registry for years, 11 Alive studies. Well being officers had beforehand reported there have been about 50,000 folks signed up for the registry, however the determine is definitely about 14,000.
The inconsistency was as a result of officers counting expired and duplicate ID playing cards, sufferers counted as caregivers, and about 3,400 sufferers who had died. The state database had counted 21,000 caregivers however the quantity is definitely 1,200. DPH Commissioner Kathleen Toomey instructed 11 Alive that the state relied on physicians to take away sufferers who stopped utilizing the oil or died, however a lot of them stopped reporting the knowledge through the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Georgia, the variety of registered medical hashish sufferers straight impacts the variety of dispensaries that may open.
Gary Lengthy, CEO of Botanical Sciences, one of many state’s two licensed medical hashish firms, mentioned the agency is “upset to study of this discrepancy” as a result of it depends on the state knowledge “to make important enterprise selections.”
“We’re desperate to proceed working with the state to extend consciousness about and broaden Georgians’ entry to medical hashish,” he instructed 11 Alive.
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lengthy mentioned “focus needs to be on how we transfer previous this in a cohesive means that will increase consciousness of this trade in our state and the supply of those therapeutic merchandise for sufferers in want.”
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