Photo via Shutterstock

Photo via Shutterstock

Although some advocates are pushing for the full legalization of cannabis in D.C., medical marijuana has been legal in the District for nearly four months already. And how’s that program going so far? Well, not so good.

At a health roundtable led by Councilmember Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) this morning, several people testified on the state of D.C.’s medical marijuana program. The consensus? There’s still much to be done to improve the program. Mostly, the District needs to expand the list qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.

Today’s roundtable revealed that most medical marijuana dispensaries in the District aren’t doing enough business to stay open. David Guard, owner of Capital City Care, also testified and said that he’s currently operating at a loss and cites a need for more patients to stay open. He also spoke out in favor of D.C. adding Crohn’s disease, PTSD, and epilepsy to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana prescriptions.

Currently, those diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, or severe muscle spasms are eligible to receive prescriptions for medical marijuana. But many think that list should be expanded to include conditions like Crohn’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and epilepsy. Ken Archer, a Greater Greater Washington contributor, testified at this morning’s hearing, explaining how his four-year-old suffers from 75 seizures a week and hasn’t responded to most of the medications he’s been prescribed. But medical marijuana has been proven to be an effective treatment for epilepsy.

Archer tells DCist that there’s a strain of cannabis that’s been proven to help reduce epileptic seizures, but it’s only currently available in Colorado and will soon be available in California. Archer and his family have a pediatric neurologist out in California who will write them a prescription when it becomes available. But he hopes that Alexander and the D.C. Council will do the right thing so that he and his family won’t need to uproot to the West Coast so his son can get proper treatments. “We would be leaving and we would never be coming back, because it’s illegal to take marijuana out of state lines,” he says. Archer says it’s all up to Alexander to expand the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.

Councilmember Alexander—who chairs the Committee on Health— expressed concern at the roundtable as to why there aren’t more patients with HIV or AIDS getting medical marijuana prescriptions. Currently, D.C.’s medical marijuana program has only 59 patients, according to Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project.

But Alexander is certainly open to expanding the list. Of the many testimonies she heard today, Alexander tells DCist that there were some “very strong arguments” to support expanding the list of qualifying conditions. “I think everyone is willing to look to expand the list, but there’s a lot we need to look at,” she said. “Once you start expanding it, it can get to a point where it can break a nail. California is to that point. We want it to be medically sound, but we don’t want people to abuse it. I’d certainly be willing to look at including epilepsy as well as some of the other conditions that were cited today.”

While Alexander is open to expanding the list, Archer says that the director of the D.C. Health Department still won’t tell him when a medical marijuana advisory committee that can add qualifying conditions like epilepsy, Crohn’s disease, and PTSD will be formed. “There’s one person who can make this happen and there’s one person who can stand in the way,” Archer said, “and that’s Councilmember Alexander.”