The disabled, sickly, & poor are now finding new access to the naturopathic medicine options, including cannabis. Currently, more than two dozen MDs & DOs are accepting SoonerCare Patients and working with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority(OMMA). This means that clinic visits may become as low as $3 and the Patient license may be just $20.
This doesn't provide marijuana itself, but it does authorize the patients to grow their own therapeutic treatments rather than get govt. subsidized drugs which the taxpayers fund. This is especially important to pain management patients whose bodies are in constant pain and who have depended on opiates for partial relief. By switching to cannabis meds, these suffering Oklahomans are reporting greater relief and restored mobility. Many are returning to some productivity and social interaction. We cross-referenced the latest list of SoonerCare providers with the OMMA list of participating physicians. we found 26 unique names of physicians, which we show in the map and spreadsheet below. |
SoonerCare pays for annual checkups, routine preventative care, and treatment of acute conditions. They also pay for up to 6 prescriptions per month. No, Cannabis is not a covered treatment.
​They probably won't cover a clinic visit which is solely for consulting about cannabis alternatives, but it is something a patient may want to bring up at a normal clinic appt. The most important development isn't the cheap cost of getting a patient license. It's the access to a medical professional who claims some understanding of Cannabis & other naturopathic treatments. This openness will allow a physician to better understand all that a patient is doing to treat their chronic conditions. |
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In recent years the patient deliberately withheld details of cannabis consumption from pain management doctors, because the govt. was pressuring these specialists to refuse further treatment to anyone who admits to consuming banned substances.
Some of these listed physicians are affiliated with multiple clinics, so they may not be writing recommendations at the same clinic where they provide care to SoonerCare patients. So it may still require two separate office visits at two separate clinics, but is still the same physician will provide the professional consultation and explain the options as well as the scope of what is being recommended to the patient. To many Oklahoma patients, it's clear that the old Board of Health was deliberately sabotaging the medical marijuana options. They were clearly advised to rescind their original set of emergency restrictions which got pushed through just 2 weeks after the voters overwhelmingly approve medical marijuana reforms. But The Health Dept. isn't the only state agency seeking to harm patients who opt for cannabis treatments. The Oklahoma Tax Commission also added massive taxes on to the cost of the medicines. The voters agreed to the plain language of "a 7% tax on the sales of medical marijuana". The Tax Commission arbitrarily decided to call it an excise tax. That means that they also get to decide if it's subject to a sales tax as well as an excise tax. Yep, they hit the patients with both. Cannabis is one of the very few items that are charged both excise and sales taxes. Prescription drug purchasers pay neither excise nor sales taxes. This raised the taxes from 7% to about 16%. The intent of many voters was to rid the state of the black market marijuana cartel. But with confiscatory taxation, the black market will never go away. The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics added emergency rules and requires additional licensing adding massive costs to those who provide the medicines commercially. The state legislature has designs on even more regulation and exploitation of the patients needing these medicines. Growing personal medicine will likely face challenges by hostile law enforcement. People are already having their medicines confiscated by rogue cops and facing illegal prosecution in many district courts. |
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