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Legal medical marijuana would not mean the drug is easily available

Even if medical marijuana becomes legal in Florida following a vote in November, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be widely available.

“”It really is up to the physician as to whether he or she prescribes the medication at that time,” says Dr. Sunil Joshi.

Joshi practices in Jacksonville and is affiliated with the Duval Medical Society. He says there’s not too much talk about medical marijuana just yet, but he expects the topic to surface more as we get closer to November. Earlier this week, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled an amendment to legalize medical marijuana could be on the ballot, and enough petitions were handed in to move the process forward.

From a practical perspective, however, Joshi says he has not seen a lot of controlled and randomized scientific research on the impact of medical marijuana- something he would look for when deciding if he feels comfortable prescribing it to a  patient.

“They would really need to be searching for that data- and that data is not here right now,” he says.

In lieu of such studies, he looks to regulation.  Joshi says it could become necessary to have a system in place comparable to the prescription drug database in Florida.

“Can look through there and see if a particular individual is getting this prescription from multiple different doctors,” he says.

While he thinks some doctors, especially in fields like pain management, may be more willing to immediately adopt the drug if it passes, he thinks it will take more time for general practitioners to feel comfortable.

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