Cannabis Care: Medical marijuana facilities as health service providers

Since California voters approved medical cannabis for use in 1996, most discussions surrounding it have involved either its biomedical or legal status. Left out of the discussion has been how medical cannabis patients developed a health service system of medical cannabis administration and what a best practice model of medical cannabis distribution might look like. This study surveyed 130 medical cannabis patients at 7 medical cannabis facilities in San Francisco and Berkeley, CA using an adapted version of Andersen's model of health service utilization. Patient data were gathered on demographic, health-related, consumer satisfaction, and service utilization variables. Organizational data were gathered on facility environments, staff, operating characteristics, and services offered. Results show that medical cannabis patients have created a system of dispensing medical cannabis that also includes services such as counseling, entertainment and support groups; all important components of coping with chronic illness. Furthermore, patients tend to be male, over 35, identify with more than one ethnicity, and report variability in terms of length of symptoms and current health status. Levels of satisfaction with facility care were fairly high, did not differ across study site and were significantly higher than nationally reported satisfaction with health care. Facilities tended to follow a social model of cannabis care, including allowing patients to use medicine on site and offering social services. This approach has implications for the creation and maintenance of a continuum of care among bottom-up social and health services agencies.