Liu Recommends Steps to Help Boost Medical Marijuana Research
City Comptroller John C. Liu today estimated that more than 100,000 New
York City residents would benefit
from legalized medical marijuana and issued a report proposing ways to
make New York City a global leader in medical marijuana research. The
report recommends seeding a $100 million public-private research fund,
establishing City-owned and -operated medical
marijuana growing sites, and requiring insurance providers to cover
medical marijuana.
“We
estimate that more than 100,000 New Yorkers with serious medical
conditions would benefit if medical marijuana were
legalized — and that gives us 100,000 good reasons to do it,” said
Comptroller Liu. “Marijuana’s medical value is well-established, but it
is still routinely denied to patients and researchers. It’s time for
that to change, and New York City government can
play a role in reshaping our understanding of marijuana’s medical uses.
We should leverage our City’s tremendous medical, bioscience, and
academic resources to lead the way in medical marijuana research in
order to make a meaningful impact on suffering for
years to come.”
Seeking
to quantify the number of New Yorkers who could benefit from such a
program, the Comptroller’s office estimated
that 105,527 New York City residents suffering from serious ailments
could be helped by medical marijuana if it were legalized by the state
legislature. The figure is a conservative estimate derived by
calculating the medical marijuana patient share of the
population in the 14 states with significant-sized medical marijuana
programs and extrapolating the rate (1.27%) to New York City’s
population. That group would include roughly 88,000 suffering from
chronic or severe pain, 15,000 with muscle spasms or multiple
sclerosis, and 11,000 with severe nausea. Other qualifying conditions
would include cancer, seizures, wasting syndrome, HIV/AIDS, and
glaucoma.
Insurance Coverage for Medical Marijuana
Comptroller
Liu recommended that the state Legislature require insurance companies
to cover medical marijuana, a provision
lacking in the bill that Albany considered in June 2013. (That bill
passed the New York State Assembly but died in the Senate.) Medical
marijuana is typically not covered by insurers, making it available only
to patients who can afford to purchase it out-of-pocket.
The
report also finds that New York City is equipped to become a worldwide
center for marijuana-related research because
of the city’s robust medical, scientific, and academic resources.
According to the City’s Economic Development Corporation, New York City
is home to the largest bioscience workforce in the country, nine major
academic medical centers, the world’s largest concentration
of academic institutions, and a number of major pharmaceutical
companies. In order to capitalize on those assets, the report recommends
establishing a Medical Cannabis Research Fund and financing City-owned
and -operated medical marijuana greenhouses.
City-Owned and -Operated Greenhouses
To
ensure an adequate supply of high-quality marijuana for medical and
research purposes, the report proposes that the
City provide the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation with
the necessary capital funds to construct one or more medical greenhouses
on its grounds or inside its facilities. Given HHC’s existing research
affiliations and its own 420,000 member “MetroPlus”
health plan, it is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in
medical marijuana research.
New York City Medical Cannabis Research Fund
Under
the proposal, the City would provide $5 million in start-up funds and
match up to $50 million of private donations
on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The ultimate goal would be to finance up
to $100 million of medical marijuana research over the next five years
by partnering with private-sector companies, academic institutions, and
hospitals. Areas of research could include:
·
Use
of medical cannabis extracts as cancer chemotherapeutic agents in
glioblastoma other brain tumors, as well as other cancers which have
shown promise in preliminary
research
·
Use of medical cannabis extracts in pediatric and adult intractable epilepsy
·
Palliation and quality of life promotion in chronic disease
·
Pain management
·
Post-traumatic stress disorder
·
Disease modification in multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders
