One of the most frustrating things about Utah’s Medical Cannabis program is product consistency and availability. This is a big problem for a medical program, because patients rely on a certain level of consistency of their medicine to obtain and maintain the results they’re looking for.
It’s not just certain kinds of product that are hard to find, its across the board, edibles, vape carts, topicals, sometimes they go weeks and months out of stock.
When they get restocked they’re gone before you get a chance to get to the dispensary because so many patients that get there first will stockpile what little bit of product is available, knowing that hoarding is the only reliable way to get you through the drought and scarcity of Utah’s Cannabis program.
Which in itself also contributes to the scarcity of product, which turns a THC Topical like Dragon Balm into “COVID era Toilet Paper”, or baby formula, except the scarcity isn’t the byproduct of unforeseen circumstances or disruption in the supply chain — Instead, Utah’s scarcity problem is a intended feature of the law, not an oversight of Utah’s Medical Cannabis program.
You see, to understand how and why Utah’s medical cannabis program works the way it does, and how it was created you need to understand the primary state of mind for the “Compromisers” and those who worked to replace Prop2 even before the ballots were even counted on election day — it was Fear. Absolute sheer terror.
They were panic-stricken from spending millions of dollars, and exhausting every political trick in the book, and consuming every bit of political capital they had to prevent and block Utah’s Medical Cannabis program, even still, they were failing.
Once they realized there wasn’t anything they could do to stop the program from being created, they would break all decorum, and precedent and bend the rules into questionable legal realms to change and replace what the voters wanted with a much different program that they have absolute control over.
As I’ve said before, MANY irrational fears ended up being legislated into law. One of these ill advised mindsets was if there was even one ounce of extra product produced that exceeds the needs of the patients, that somehow it would end up in the hands of a child, and would be used recreationally — and the world would come to an end - Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA!
Another “Feature” of Utah’s program was an unelected board of prohibitionist and doctors who have spent their entire careers advocating on the harms of Cannabis and addiction, and even with Utah being a legal state, legislators intentionally stacked the board with these folks who still believe the harms outweigh the benefits, and are constantly looking to restrain or roll back the program.
This health department/Agricultural Dept board has the ability to throttle the speed at which kinds of products reach the shelves, and based on the conversation of the board meeting this week, its sounds like they’re coming for THC-only products, which will only make product availability more challenging for patients in a market that already can’t keep up.
For some reason one of these doctors believes that patients shouldn’t have access to high THC content products, and wants Utah patients to be using more CBD or cannabis products with high 1:1 ratios. The board looked at the total products sold in utah’s market, and determined they don’t like how so many patients are opting for the THC-only products. In their mind that is “recreational” which is ridiculous.
Utah and its leaders are so quick to call everything “Recreational” it’s almost like their weird compulsion for calling every democrat a Pedo, or Socialist/Communist/Marxist/Fascist — It’s like
“[They] Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” -- The Princess Bride
How amazing would it be in the future here in Utah, picture it with me, around Christmas-time when the winter low pressure storms wreak havoc on my joints, maximizing my pain… oh and look what I have here that my husband picked up from the dispensary on his way home from work, it’s a boutique small batch of Sister Brigham’s Winter Midnight Peppermint Fudge Weed Squares, each Fudge Square is 50MG of THC/CBD/CBG/THCV — and it tastes fantastic. And then I’ll follow it with a really yummy craft Indica infused Earl Grey Tea from another small local vender that makes wonderful, and reasonably priced medical teas. See this is the kind of future where Utah allows small vendors and small businesses to innovate, without creating ridiculous hurdles and licensing fees, and upholding monopolies that don’t make room for small business owners to increase and contribute to the quality of the products on the market.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately the Baby Formula shortage, or many of the food and produce recalls for contamination, you’ll see massive product disruption as a result of single point monopolies failing and contaminating the large portions of the entire national food supply.
Abbott Laboratories had a dangerous monopoly and control over a large share of entire baby formula industry because they are one of a handful of manufactures that supply the entire market. They had a contamination incident that killed babies, and they got shut down which disrupted the entire market. That type of consolidation of industry and manufacturing should never be allowed, especially in essential products like baby formula, medicine and other essential things of life. It’s dangerous.
Utah refused to let “the free market” figure things out, and then let parasitic capitalism make way for the big corporations to gobble up the entire competition until they have a monopoly and control of the entire board.
Utah, who’s state motto is, no joke, “Industry” — did the opposite and created law that built a cartel leading to anointing a few select companies with the ultimate golden ticket, in a process chalk full of a SHIT TON of corruption, and built upon multiple layers of conflict of interest, that is not able to meet the current demand and the needs of the Utah Patients.
With every level of the manufacturing process being “throttled” by the state of Utah, the small cartel can never make enough product to meet the needs of the patients demand, which also allows them to increase the price on product and increase overheads because if there is only a few bottles of a certain kind of topical, patients would be willing to buy it at $80 a pop and feel grateful they got it before it sold out for another 6 weeks. It amazes me how anti-free-Market Utah is when it comes to medical cannabis, but they go to the free market extremes on everything else. There should be a free market where there are 15 different kinds of products like Dragonbalm, or Everything Balm and because there is competition in the market where the manufactures and companies are competing for the customers, the prices will come down to a more reasonable level, and with a diversified manufacturing supply, if one brand is sold out, there are other similar products. Imagine in any other setting where you’re a chronic patient, and you regularly use, for example, extra strength Tylenol with those fun little laser drilled holes for quicker release, and you have found great success with that product in relieving your pain to a manageable level — but OH NO, they’re out of that kind, so you have to choose with whatever is left, so its either Walmart brand Generic Baby Liquid pain reliever, a vegan 300MG Fentanyl patch, or an in-patient IV infusion of Dilaudid. Those are your only choices.
Talk about a shit-buffet.
No, in a normal situation, you’ll be at the drug store and have a choice between 3 or 4 different generic forms of the same type medication, in the exact same format, and dosing, or also have an array of similar type pain-relievers of similar style, consumption, dosing, etc. and there wouldn’t be much disruption to you as a patient in your treatment protocols because there was a diverse free market designed to compete for the patients needs.
That is the rub, Utah’s program was not designed for the patients.
That’s why it’s not working for patients. The Patients are the product, for a few lucky folks in the state with connections so they can make lots of money for themselves and their shareholders. It’s a full reversal of what a medical program should be, where the patients are the customers, the consumer, and the market competes for their business. Why is Utah so scared of a free-market?
I’d love to see a day where Utah opens space for the Boutique and Mom & Pop type entrepreneurs so they can start creating amazing cannabis edibles, and yummy gummies and products for patients, further diversifying the market and product availability.
How amazing would it be in the future here in Utah, around Christmas-time when the winter low pressure storms wreak havoc on my joints, maximizing my pain… oh and look what I have here that my husband picked up from the dispensary on his way home from work, it’s a boutique small batch of Sister Brigham’s Winter Midnight Peppermint Fudge Weed Squares, each Fudge Square is 50MG of THC/CBD/CBG/THCV — and it tastes fantastic. And then I’ll follow it with a really yummy craft Indica infused Earl Grey Tea from another small local vender that makes wonderful, and reasonably priced medical teas. See this is the kind of future where Utah allows small vendors and small businesses to innovate, without creating ridiculous hurdles and licensing fees, and upholding monopolies that don’t make room for small business owners to increase and contribute to the quality of the products on the market.
Perhaps that is where we need to start advocating our legislators and improving our laws, to make room for the small business owners, the bakers and confectioners who want to use their amazing skills to also help patients. Utah definitely needs to get away from their unreasonable fear of products appealing to children, so by the power and enforcement of Utah Law, all local cannabis edibles need to come with an unpleasant, or barely tolerable experience.
It’s just weird, and it’s performative, and does absolutely nothing in the “imaginary prevention” of childhood cannabis consumption.
When I was in High School in the 90s, the stoners were smoking ditch weed that was stuffed into a condom and smuggled in the asshole of their buddy “Skidmarks” for the first three periods of class before break. If they’re committed to trying cannabis, they’ll do it by any means necessary.
You don’t have to intentionally make legal medical cannabis a bad experience for everyone to make it unappealing for kids hell bent on trying weed.
And even then, all the statistics show the fears of the “think of the children” crowd never rationalize into real world experience, and states that have legislated many of these fears into law, end up coming back a decade later and eliminate all the hysterical lawmaking that has only caused headache and trouble for those who have to implement and run these state programs. Fear is never a good reason to do something — we all know this. Fear shuts off the higher reasoning parts of our brain, and we do stupid things when we’re in a reactionary state.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard once said, “Fear is an incompetent teacher.” It’s never the mindset you want to be in when doing something permanent, especially like lawmaking.
How can we work to meet the needs of the Utah Patients? Well, the biggest thing we could do would meet the needs of the market. After 2 years of data collection from the state program, the state knows what patients want. The products the patients are purchasing is the products they are finding that is working for them to treat their symptoms and medical issues.
The Department of Health and AgDepartment should be working with the growers and manufactures to make sure the products the patients need is available and in the dispensaries, and not held up in the “Testing” phase for sometimes 4-6 months.
If the state is going to require all these hoops for product to go through before it reaches the patients, then the state needs to fully fund and staff and provide the equipment for the department that does testing.
Heck, we even found out this week that the machine up at the AgDepartment that tests for all the cannabis for harmful microbes and toxins is out of commission because they can’t get little glass tubes, so product safety in Utah is not as high in quality as it should be, and I guess we have to be ok with that, right?
We can do better, and I think if the legislators and the Health/Ag folks all worked more closely to create a more patient focused program, detached from all the heavy burdens and over regulation that emanates from their fears and paranoia — I believe things wouldn’t be so unreliable and so damn expensive.
Anyway, I’m the PotHead Veteran — Please like and subscribe, and remember that the earth has always been a sphere, it revolves around the Sun, The speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer, 2+2=4 — and when things become so heavy, and you just can’t anymore, take a knee, catch your breath, and then get back up again!
And like always, Smoke Long and Prosper. 🖖🏻😶🌫️
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