Ohio adds qualifying conditions to the medical cannabis program

State officials charged with overseeing Ohio’s medical marijuana program last week approved the addition of three health conditions that qualify a patient for medicinal use of cannabis. The move increases the number of serious illnesses that allow a patient to medicinally use cannabis in Ohio to 25, and is the second time state regulators have updated the list this year.

On Wednesday, the Ohio State Medical Board announced it had added HD, end-stage diseases and spasticity to its approved list. Huntington’s disease is a rare, inherited neurological disorder that causes the breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. The disease usually occurs in adults between 30 and 40 and causes progressive cognitive, motor, and psychiatric symptoms. A cure for Huntington’s disease has not yet been found, but treatments such as medications, physical therapy, and talk therapy have been shown to help patients manage their symptoms.

Spasticity is a medical condition characterized by prolonged muscle contraction and abnormal muscle tension. Spasticity is a symptom that is commonly associated with injuries or disorders of the brain or nervous system and neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis.

The inclusion of all three new medical conditions in the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program (OMMCP) is effective immediately. The board also voted to reject petitions to add autism spectrum disorder, restless legs syndrome, panic disorder with agoraphobia, and convulsions to the list of conditions that qualify a patient for medicinal use of cannabis.

List of conditions reviewed annually

Under House Bill 523, the measure that legalized medical marijuana in Ohio in 2016, the state medical committee was given authority to add to the state’s list of qualifying conditions during an annual petition and review process. Before that year, however, the board had agreed to include only one disease on the state list and approve severe wasting syndrome known as cachexia in 2020.

Anyone can apply for a disease to be included in the OMMCP, but requests for diseases that have already been reviewed and rejected by the board must contain new scientific information to support the new request. Petitions must include the specific disease or condition to be added and information from experts who specialize in the study, including relevant scientific or medical evidence, information about whether existing treatments for the condition are inadequate, and evidence supporting the use of medical marijuana to support the treatment of the disease.

In February, the board’s medical marijuana committee considered the petitions for the 2020 application period. The committee decided that three of the petitions for complex regional pain syndrome, chronic migraine, and arthritis are already covered by the approval of chronic or untreatable pain as a qualifying disease.

List of qualifying conditions grows to 25

With this year’s supplements, there are now 25 conditions that will qualify a patient for Ohio’s medical cannabis program.

“Under Ohio law, the following medical conditions qualify: AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cachexia, cancer, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy or other seizure disorder, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, Huntington’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic and severe or persistent pain, Parkinson’s disease, HIV positive status, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, spasticity, spinal cord disease or injury, incurable disease, Tourette’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury, and ulcerative colitis “, States the state medical association on its website.

The next deadline for petitioning the board to approve additions to Ohio’s list of conditions that qualify a patient for medical marijuana use is scheduled for November 1 through December 31, 2021. For more information on how to petition to include Qualifying Medical Conditions in the OMMCP, please visit Available Online