How to purchase medical marijuana in the US: New York's first medical marijuana clinic makes debut

New York City has finally joined 22 other states in the US by rolling out its comprehensive and tightly monitored medical marijuana program on Thursday.

The state opened its first set of pot clinics dispersed throughout the state. Eight such clinics are slated to be launched this week.

New York's comprehensive medical cannabis program – the most conservative programs of its own kind in the country – is especially designed to help patients suffering from serious conditions including AIDS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, neuropathy, epilepsy and cancer.

The Compassionate Care Act signed into law in July 2015 allows the patient to obtain pot from such clinics to help ease out their symptoms associated with the approved conditions. To get medical cannabis, the patient would have to first visit a registered medical practitioner and get a prescription.

As of now, no list of registered physicians have been published by the Department of Health. However, the New York State Medical Marijuana Program website states that "The Department of Health will soon post a list of those registered physicians who consent to provide their names and specialties.”

Those with a prescription can register on the Medical Marijuana Program website and pay a $50 (about AU $71) application fee. Once the application is approved, the patient will receive a registry identification card via email. The patient can then schedule an appointment with the authorized facility, a pharmacist who can provide up to 30 day supply of medical cannabis.

Physicians are required to pay AU $354 for a mandatory four-hour online course before they can certify patients under the program. Pharmacists too are required to undergo this training before they can dispense the drug to the patients. This requirement is not mandated by other state programs but New York, reports Reuters.

In addition, New York prohibits marijuana for smoking unlike all other states that allow that use of medical marijuana, except for Minnesota. It allows the use of liquid or oil form of cannabis to be used in vapourisers, inhalers and ingestible capsules.