To be entered in the Medical Marijuana Use Registry, a patient must be evaluated in person by a certified medical marijuana physician. After the doctor determines that a patient diagnosed with one of the qualifying medical conditions would benefit from medical marijuana, the patient is registered. The doctor also enters an order for the dosages and types of medical marijuana products the patient should receive. The patient and their legal caretaker (if applicable) are issued medical marijuana cards and can purchase marijuana products from a dispensary also known as a medical marijuana treatment center operated by a licensed Florida grower. To purchase medical marijuana or see a Doctor in Florida, you must be a Florida resident diagnosed with a qualifying medical condition, such as chronic pain, anxiety, epilepsy, cancer, multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Crohn’s disease, ALS, or PTSD. Seasonal residents who are registered to vote in another state but live in Florida for at least 31 days every year are also eligible. Patients are seen at anyone of our locations by appointment only. To see if you qualify for medical marijuana, and to make an appointment with All Natural, please call 800-250-6737 or visit our website to learn more.
29 states allow cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Despite that, scientists have a harder time doing research on the potential medical benefits of marijuana than they do on “harder” drugs like ecstasy or magic mushrooms. The public may think of pot use as no big deal, but federal laws make it difficult for researchers to obtain legal supplies. Clinical researchers can get permission from the DEA to grow or create restricted compounds; not so with cannabis.
The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed marijuana in the most restrictive use category, Schedule I, deeming it a drug with no medicinal value and high potential for abuse. To do clinical research with marijuana, you need a DEA license, and you need to get your study approved by the FDA. When it comes to actually obtaining research-grade marijuana, though, you have to go through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a process that has proved problematic for some researchers determined to study the potential medical benefits of marijuana in Florida and others states around the US.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that marijuana can reduce chronic pain, reduce muscle spasms in patients with multiple sclerosis and perhaps even help treat symptoms of PTSD. The small amount of clinical research out there also supports the idea that marijuana could be an effective treatment for pain. A 2007 study found that smoking cannabis reduced chronic pain in HIV-positive patients by 34 percent. Results from a study in 2010 further supported the theory that it can [reduce the intensity of neuropathic chronic pain- pain caused by damage to the nervous system–marijuana recommended by Doctors in Florida help patients find the relief they’ve been yearning for for years.
If you’re going to run a trial to show that marijuana has positive effects, the NIDA essentially is not going to allow it.
Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have called for more research into the therapeutic uses of marijuana and for the U.S. government to reconsider its classification as a Schedule I substance.
Many universities grow and harvests cannabis for studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, yet because NIDA’s mandated mission is to research the harmful effects of controlled substances and stop drug abuse, the institute isn’t interested in helping establish marijuana as a medicine.
The federal government’s position on marijuana, according to a document featured prominently on the DEA’s homepage, is that:
The clear weight of the currently available evidence supports [Schedule I] classification, including evidence that smoked marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medicinal value in treatment in the United States, and evidence that there is a general lack of accepted safety for its use even under medical supervision says Doctors in Miami Florida… Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe.
Burge tells a different story. “The United States government has gone to great lengths to prevent [medical] research on whole-plant marijuana,” he says, though research into isolated components of the plant has gone on.
“We have an FDA-approved protocol, but the only way to actually get marijuana for the study, the only federally approved source. “NIDA refused to sell us the marijuana for this study.”
There’s a lot of investment in marijuana remaining illegal. According to NIDA, the agency can provide research-grade marijuana to projects that have received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or to a non NIH-funded project that has an approved Investigative New Drug application on file with the FDA; has proper DEA registration; and has been approved as scientifically valid by a Health and Human Services scientific review panel.
The legal cannabis industry is posting some insane job-growth numbers. The total number of job postings for the cannabis industry increased by almost a 500% in 2017, as a host of states — including Florida — legalized the plant for adult consumption. That’s up from just 18% growth in 2016, according to a recent study, an online job platform. Nine states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis, though it’s considered an illegal, Schedule I drug at the federal level. Because of that trend, there are now more cannabis workers than dental hygienists in the US, according to Marijuana Business Daily, a financial-news publication focusing on the cannabis industry. The higher end of their estimate range suggests there were 230,000 people employed in the US legal cannabis industry in 2017, whereas there were two hundred thousand dental hygienists, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
Job growth in the cannabis industry is now outpacing some of the fastest-growing fields in the US, including tech and healthcare. Job postings in the healthcare industry grew 70% in 2017 while tech defined as jobs in the software and IT space rose by 254%, according to ZR’s data. The pace of cannabis-industry job growth increased throughout 2017 as businesses went on a hiring spree to gear up for the start of legal sales and Doctors in Florida. Cannabis jobs are mostly clustered in the industry’s epicenters — Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Colorado, according to ZR — as well as a few cities in Florida. Florida legalized medical cannabis in 2016. Now that marijuana is legal in California — by far the most populous state to legalize the drug — the report predicts the state will pull in over $5.1 billion in cannabis sales in 2018. For comparison, Californians bought $5 billion worth of beer in 2017, according to industry research group World. Total spending on legal cannabis is expected to skyrocket to over $21 billion by 2021 for all US consumers, the BDS report says. Factoring in “indirect effects” of legal cannabis revenue, such as transactions between cannabis companies and businesses in other industries (like shipping, packaging, payroll processing, etc.), BDS Analytics expects legalized cannabis to inject close to $40 billion into the US economy by 2021. The report, however, notes that forecasts about the cannabis business are difficult because its illegal status at the federal level means the federal government doesn’t track data for the industry. If marijuana were to become legal in all 50 states, a new report from cannabis industry research firm New Frontier Data estimates that the industry could add billions to US tax coffers. But that’s only if Attorney General Jeff Sessions — a noted cannabis legalization opponent — doesn’t pursue a federal crackdown.