In 2022, Utah lawmakers passed a bill designed to prevent state employers from discriminating against workers who legally used medical cannabis. The law was in response to a firefighter who was threatened with termination when his superiors discovered he had an active medical cannabis card. The new law dictated that medical cannabis would have to be treated just like any other prescription drug by state employers.
While I applaud the legislation, I do not agree with lawmakers’ reasoning. My primary disagreement is rooted in the fact that cannabis is not just another prescription drug. Cannabis is markedly different from prescription medications on multiple levels. To believe otherwise is to deny reality.
Still Federally Illegal
The first and most important distinction between medical cannabis and prescription medication is legal status. Cannabis, which is to say marijuana and marijuana derived products, remains illegal under federal law. Furthermore, it is also considered a schedule I controlled substance. As such, federal law does not recognize any valid medical benefits.
This is not to say that states should rollback their medical cannabis laws in light of federal restrictions. Rather, it is to say that no other drug on the Schedule I list is prescribed as a medicine. That alone makes medical cannabis unique.
Doctors Can Only Recommend
Cannabis’ status as a Schedule I drug dictates that doctors can’t legally prescribe it. That is why they don’t. From a purely legal standpoint, doctors can only recommend medical cannabis to patients. They might also recommend dosage and delivery method, but recommendations are just that.
Compare that to a typical prescription medication like penicillin. Doctors have legal authority to write penicillin prescriptions. With those prescriptions come dosage and frequency guidelines. Doctors also direct pharmacists in how to fill prescriptions based on drug potency.
Patients Exercise Their Choices
When it comes to actually obtaining medical cannabis, patients exercise their choices with impunity. Let us say a patient visits the Beehive Farmacy marijuana pharmacy in Utah. They will have the opportunity to choose from vape cartridges, raw flower, concentrated oils, edible products, and topicals. Not only that, but the patient will also get to choose the potency that works best for them. No such choices are offered with prescription medications.
If that same patient went down to the local Walgreens to get an antibiotic prescription filled, there would be no choice. He would get whatever the pharmacist was directed to give him by the doctor. It would likely be a pill with instructions to take it so many times daily.
This distinction cannot be emphasized enough. With a traditional prescription medication, the doctor and pharmacist maintain control. But with medical cannabis, the patient is completely in control. Knowing this, how can anyone insist that medical cannabis is just another prescription drug?
Lawmakers Have to Account for It
When one steps back and looks clearly at the differences between medical cannabis and legitimate prescription medications, it becomes a bit easier to understand why lawmakers attempt to regulate medical cannabis in the way they do. They need to account for the fact that medical cannabis isn’t prescribed and controlled in the same way legitimate prescription medications are.
One last thing to consider is that cannabis itself isn’t a medication per se. It’s a plant. The THC found in the plant is what patients are after when they consume medical cannabis. If there’s anything within cannabis that could be turned into a prescription medication, it would be THC. I suspect that is the ultimate goal. For now, however, cannabis is anything but another prescription drug.
