ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando’s first medical marijuana dispensary opened Friday.
Patients were lined up outside as Knox Medical opened its doors on Orange Avenue in the Ivanhoe Village area.
The Winter Garden-based dispensary sells low-grade THC in oils and vapor cartridges to anyone with a prescription.
The facility does not offer smokable buds or cannabis edibles..
For patients like five-time cancer survivor Bruce Grossman, the wait period to get medical cannabis locally felt like forever.
“It was the longest, most tedious thing,” he said. “I had to drive two hours to Lade Lake to see a prescribing doctor.”
Grossman said marijuana is drastically improving his quality of life.
“I have a lot of pain. If you look at an X-Ray of my side, it looks like an erector set,” he said. “I’ve got bolts, screws, pins; I’ve been chopped open.”
[ Photos: Knox Medical in Orlando ]
Vicki Boell deals with chronic muscle spasms and said marijuana eases her pain enough that she can do every day activities.
“If I go vape some marijuana with the THC, the medical marijuana I’m getting today, then I can get up and I can water some flowers and do some dishes and function,” she said.
Boell said an Orlando dispensary is convenient.
“First of all, it means I don’t have to pay a $25 delivery fee and wait for Fridays and Mondays,” she said.
By state law, patients have to be under a doctor’s care for three months before the doctor can write a script.
“Many physicians, as well as patients, disagree with that duration,” said Dr. Terel Newton, who is approved to prescribe cannabis.
“I do a second visit at 45 days to continue to educate the patient on the types of cannabis that’s available,” he said. “Then we do a 90-day visit where we actually put in the patient’s order.”
Newton said he sees the good medical marijuana is doing for his patients every day, but he feels terrible for his terminal patients who have to follow the state’s strict guidelines.
“For example, ALS, which is Lou Gehrig’s disease, there’s an average of two years life expectancy after diagnosis. For that type of patient, 90 days is an extremely long period,” Newton said.
The owners said Thursday they hope a local dispensary will help reduce the negative stigma surrounding medical marijuana
Amendment 2, approved by 71 percent of Florida voters on Election Day, allows higher-strength marijuana to be used for a wider list of medical ailments, but lawmakers have not decided how it will be regulated.