During the last six months, the size of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program has surged due to the anxiety-producing effects of COVID-19 and some favorable changes to regulation.
The number of patient visits at cannabis dispensaries has risen by more than 70 percent — rising from 70,000 a week in February to 120,000 each week in August.
Retail sales also have exploded. Since February, dispensaries have sold as much marijuana as they had during the previous two years combined, according to statistics released last week by the state Department of Health, which governs the cannabis program.
Patients bought about $385 million in legal marijuana products from the state’s 89 cannabis dispensaries during the period, according to the state Office of Medical Marijuana. Until February, total retail sales since the inception of the highly regulated industry two years ago in the Keystone State had totaled only about $400 million. There are at least 27 dispensaries now operating in the five-county region.
“The program is doing really well,” said Chris Woods, CEO of Terrapin Care Station, a cannabis grower and processor upstate in Clinton County. “It’s hard not to draw a correlation with COVID-19. In unsettled times, cannabis is a medicine that seems to help people cope with anxiety.”
Anxiety remains one of the most cited reasons for getting a state medical marijuana card. It comes in second only to chronic pain. Post traumatic stress disorder is a distant third.
Why has marijuana suddenly taken off?
It is chiefly attributable to temporary changes to the regulations implemented by the Wolf administration. Marijuana dispensaries were among the first businesses deemed “essential” by Gov. Tom Wolf. But Wolf also streamlined access to medical marijuana in ways that made it safer to join the program.
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