Medical Marijuana: A Real Hot Potato

Imagine walking into your office one morning and finding out that your credit card services had been terminated overnight. They were cut off not for lack of payment and not for being involved in an illegal business, but rather they were cut off for indeterminate “order cannabis online UK business practices.” This is a reality facing many owners of medical marijuana dispensaries who get “creative” with their applications; and if you fabricated your application it can be a legitimate termination – but that isn’t always the case.

Left Without Service

The story above isn’t uncommon. It happened recently to Alternative Medical Choice, Inc., a consultation service based in Oregon. What does AMC do that got them in trouble with their service provider Intuit? AMC is a business which offers consultations with doctors for the approval of medical cannabis use under Oregon law. Even though the clinic does not dispense or distribute medical cannabis, it has lost its services.

Intuit states that they terminated services because AMC did not reveal its involvement with medical marijuana. When further questioned about terminating some 3000 other accounts they hold with clinics offering the same services, they stated that they would not be terminating those accounts because they didn’t feature medical cannabis on their web pages. AMC offered to remove the reference, but Intuit won’t reestablish the account because “now we know.”

PayPal, the online payment service, has also terminated accounts associated with medical marijuana consultation references.

DEA, FDA, IOM and Other Alphabet Soup

Part of the problem businesses face stems from the question of whether or not marijuana is actually medicinal. The DEA and the US government hold the position that smoking marijuana has no medical value. The American Cancer Society, the AMA and the AAP all agree that smoking is not an optimal way in which to gain any benefits, if they exist. Alternate methods of ingestion are being investigated.

Even the large Institute of Medicine study frequently cited by proponents of medicinal marijuana actually opposes the use of smoked marijuana for medical benefits. The study found that there were some “potentially therapeutic” benefits to cannabinoid drugs, primarily THC, but that other available medications offered better results. The lack of standardization, the method of dosage and other factors all lead to the IOM rejecting the idea of more studies.