The State of Utah Legislature has put limits on the amount of patients that each Qualified Medical Provider (QMP) may treat. From the Utah.gov website-“A QMP may not recommend medical cannabis treatment to more than 275 of the QMP’s patients at one time, or to more than 600 patients if the QMP is certified by the appropriate American medical board in anesthesiology, neurology, oncology, pain, hospice and palliative medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, endocrinology, rheumatology, or psychiatry or if a licensed business employs or contracts the QMP for the specific purpose of providing hospice and palliative care.”
This requires a comparison. Picture calling a Dentist when you have a toothache, and you were told that they could not treat you because they had already reached their allotment of 275 or 600 patients. Another thought, what if you went to the emergency room and were told that you had to wait to be treated because the doctors on staff had reached their limit of patients already, and the doctors that could treat you were off that day? What if your family pet had a medical emergency and you did not have a veterinarian that could treat your pet? These situations sound like they are ridiculous comparisons, but why would the Lawmakers discriminate against certain medical providers, and not ALL medical providers. Let’s put that into perspective. The Utah Department of Health website listed that in Utah in 2017 there were about 5.8 primary care physicians for every 100,000 people in Utah. That amounts to each primary care physician having 17,241 patients each if divided equally in the state. Of course the larger communities would be further restricted because of the population density. The primary care physicians mentioned also includes General Practice; General Family Medicine; General Internal Medicine; and General Pediatrics, Further reducing the ratio of medical providers to patients. If the same patient limit requirements were placed on all medical providers, that would leave the citizens seeking medical attention in a serious situation if they weren’t one of the first 275 or 600 patients. In other words, if you were not on the “short list”, and were one of the those that could not get treatment because of patient limits, that could put your health at serious risk depending on the condition. And even without a pandemic present, how could that possibly make any sense at all? SO……could this mean that an unreasonable limit placed on Medical Cannabis/Marijuana Providers is unfair, discriminatory, and not in the best interests of health of the citizens of Utah. This author thinks so. What were our lawmakers thinking when they placed such a discriminatory burden on the medical community and also on the citizens of Utah? If our lawmakers put restrictions on any part of our medical health and community, what is there to stop them from placing similar restrictions on any other components of our health? It is time to write our lawmakers and Governor and demand that these intrusions into our health be stopped. This doesn’t even bring into account the expenses that the Utah Cannabis Pharmacies have to incur just to do business in Utah, with the laws limiting the amount of customers they can sell to. If this was done to any other business, it would probably spawn numerous lawsuits. For further reading on statistics, visit this page- https://ibis.health.utah.gov/ibisph-view/indicator/complete_profile/PhysPop.html