Minnesota to Allow Chronic Pain Patients to Use Medical Marijuana

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Minnesota health officials will allow residents with chronic pain to buy medical marijuana starting in August, they announced on Dec. 2 in a long-awaited decision that could expand enrollment in the state’s struggling program by thousands of patients.

Department of Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger made the decision well ahead of a Jan. 1 deadline.

Minnesota will be the 19th state where medical marijuana is legal to extend the drug to people with intractable pain — defined in state law as pain that can’t otherwise be treated or cured. Only five of the 24 states don’t include severe, chronic or intractable pain as a qualifying condition.

Ehlinger said in a statement that it was a “tough choice,” but “given the strong medical focus of Minnesota’s medical cannabis program and the compelling testimony of hundreds of Minnesotans, it became clear that the right and compassionate choice was to add intractable pain to the program’s list of qualifying conditions.”

In Minnesota, it’s a drastic change for a highly restricted program that has struggled with low enrollment, leading to high drug costs for patients.

As of Sunday, 760 patients were registered for the program, which was approved in 2014 and started selling the drug July 1. Just how much that number will jump is unclear, though state officials have previously indicated it could double or triple enrollment.

Dozens of those would-be patients urged to add chronic pain, eyeing medical marijuana as a possible relief from never-ending headaches and constant pain from back surgeries or car crashes.

But the decision goes against a recommendation from a panel of medical experts that Ehlinger himself assembled for advice. They cited the potential for drug abuse and a lack of solid medical evidence about medical marijuana’s efficacy in treating pain.

When the Legislature approved medical marijuana, it told Ehlinger that he must to decide whether to add intractable pain as a qualifying condition before considering other disorders.

Lawmakers could vote to reverse the commissioner’s decision this spring, but both the Republican-controlled House and DFL-held Senate would have to vote the addition down.