Bennabis Well being just lately introduced that its medical hashish program is now out there to sufferers dwelling in New Mexico. The corporate has partnered with AltaVida Dispensary, positioned in Albuquerque, to assist help medical hashish sufferers, particularly with staff’ compensation instances involving a affected person searching for to make use of hashish as drugs for continual ache.
“This can be a tremendously thrilling step within the development of Bennabis Well being as a visionary firm clearing a path for many who can profit most from medical hashish the place protection isn’t in any other case out there,” mentioned Bennabis Well being president Don Parisi. “Opening our community in New Mexico with AltaVida helps us progress in our mission to realize medical hashish advantages throughout the nation.”
New Mexico’s Employees’ Compensation states that medical hashish can be utilized by an injured employee “when deemed ‘affordable and obligatory care’ beneath the Workers’ Compensation Act.” Nevertheless, sufferers need to pay out of pocket and are later reimbursed.
“In sure states like New Mexico and New Jersey, staff’ compensation claims instances can require medical marijuana prices be reimbursed by the service when it presents affordable and obligatory remedy as an acceptable various to opioids,” a Bennabis Health press release states. “Nevertheless, in these instances the injured employee must pay out-of-pocket a considerable quantity per 30 days for his or her medical marijuana, after which search reimbursement from their payor.”
Bennabis Well being presents what they name a “layer of safety between the dispensary and the payor” by way of its membership program and a team of medical health insurance and hashish business professionals. One in all its founders, Anne M. Davis, initially found hashish as a remedy for her a number of sclerosis however her medical health insurance didn’t cowl her swap to medical hashish as a result of it’s a federally unlawful substance and Schedule I drug.
Earlier this yr in March, the corporate partnered with a New Jersey dispensary to supply comparable advantages previous to its enlargement into New Mexico.
Grownup-use gross sales started in New Mexico on April 1, 2022, however the state has had its medical hashish program in place since 2010 (technically, its earliest cannabis-related laws was established in 2007, known as the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act). Since then, state regulation has undergone a couple of revisions, corresponding to addressing shortages of provide in 2018 by growing the plant cultivation restrict from 450 to 2,500. In 2019, the state expanded patient rights, and likewise added new qualifying situations for medical hashish use.
Most just lately, the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division reported on gross sales for the month of November, which exhibits a lower in medical hashish gross sales and a gentle improve in adult-use gross sales. Medical hashish gross sales had been recorded at $14 million, which was $660,000 lower than was collected in October. Again in April 2022 when adult-use gross sales started, medical hashish gross sales had been recorded at $17 million.
As of Dec. 5, the state has additionally begun issuing medical hashish playing cards digitally.
On Dec. 6, the University of New Mexico (UNM) introduced that one in all its engineering professors, Nathan Jackson, is a principal investigator on a challenge that goals to create a solution to make cannabis-based vaping safer. “Each vaping instrument features by heating the liquid to larger than 200 levels Celsius, which creates poisonous byproducts, which then enter the aerosol droplets which might be inhaled,” Jackson said. “Our expertise makes use of a special mechanism to create the aerosol that doesn’t require heating, so it might probably get rid of the dangerous byproducts.” The challenge is named “Droplet and Metallic Particle Evaluation of ENDS,” which obtained a pilot award from the UNM Complete Most cancers Heart.
“Our expertise makes use of a silicon substrate, the place no steel is in touch with the liquid and it makes use of much less warmth, so probably we are able to cut back the well being dangers related to vaping,” Jackson defined. “Additionally, our expertise can generate micro-scale droplets as a substitute of the nano-scale droplets present in present vaping instruments, in order that signifies that droplets are much less more likely to enter the blood stream and cluster collectively, which might additionally lead to safer aerosols.”