Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
More than 200 people turned out Wednesday night for a “meet and greet” event hosted by New England Treatment Access just weeks before it opens its Conz Street medical marijuana dispensary.
Eager and curious, the steady crowd of patients, doctors and advocates who arrived at the Fairfield Inn & Suites dropped off job applications, registered as patients with the soon-to-open dispensary and learned more about the cannabis-based therapies the fledgling organization plans to offer.
“What surprised me was the anticipation,” Northon Arbelaez, a standards and practices consultant for NETA, said of the event’s atmosphere. “There are some people who have some very serious health issues.”
For 2½ hours, NETA employees were greeted by people from all walks of life, ranging in age from their 20s to 70s. Families even came, and many who attended said the opening of NETA’s Northampton dispensary is reason to cheer, as sick patients will now have easier access to medicine.
“They don’t need to go to the black market and they don’t need to go to their grandkids,” advanced practice nurse Michelle Kaskey said. “We’ve been waiting for a long time for dispensaries to open. I think it will be a good one.”
As a nurse, Kaskey is unable to offer the physician’s recommendation needed for a medical marijuana patient to purchase cannabis at one of the state licensed dispensaries, though she says she appreciates the medically legitimate uses of the flower.
“It’s something patients really need to back up, or supplement, or be the primary treatment for a wide variety of medical issues,” she said. “When medical marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts, it freed me up to speak openly about it with my patients.”
She offers “clinical assessments” of patients’ marijuana use, advising them whether they are using it in a therapeutically appropriate way. If a patient needs a physician’s referral for a medical card, she will often send them to Dr. Jill Griffin.
Though she was trained as an emergency room doctor, Griffin now operates a medical marijuana practice on Locust Street in Northampton. She said she’s celebrating the opening of the Conz Street dispensary.
“I’m so happy for my patients,” Griffin said. “Now the physicians are seeing they’re not taking opioids, Ambien, trazodone, Valium.”
Medical marijuana patient Vivienne, of Northampton, said she was “thrilled” to hear about the dispensary opening in Northampton.
At the gathering Wednesday, she got information about one of 25 job openings at the Northampton facility. She said she planned to apply for the assistant manager position due to her passion for the curative benefits of cannabis that she witnessed firsthand.
After being diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye, Vivienne said she was unsatisfied with the treatment options presented to her by her doctor.
The standard treatment for her kind of cancer involves surgery to cut open the affected eye, place radioactive pellets inside, sew it up and remain in isolation for five days due to the radioactivity, she said.
“When you decide you don’t want to rely on your doctor, you have to do a ton of research,” Vivienne said.
So she pursued alternative treatments, cannabis among them, on a 3½-year journey around the world that ended in October. That’s when she was treated by a less invasive method of radiation by a doctor in Boston.
But all those alternative therapies greatly helped to build her immune system, Vivienne said.
“I’ve never been healthier in my life,” she said.
Vivienne did not want her last name published due to the fact that she had to procure the highly concentrated cannabis oil through underground channels. The therapy she sought, “full extract cannabis oil,” is made by extracting 60 grams of oil from one pound of marijuana.
Cancer patients often are instructed to take 1 gram each day for 60 days.
Griffin noted the popularity of the highly concentrated extracts in cancer treatment and said that NETA will be unable to offer the product due to the sheer amount of plant material needed to create it.
With a shrunken tumor, Vivienne continues to use marijuana tincture as a preventive measure against cancer.
“It’s just a way of continuing to cleanse my body,” Vivienne said. “I’m certainly not going to do proactive chemo.”
Kaskey and Griffin say the dispensary brings benefits to patients because they’re able to try strains and products to determine what works best for them. That’s a barrier with today’s system, in which patients are treated by marijuana that they grow themselves or that is grown by another “caregiver.”
A caregiver may treat only one patient, and in either case the caregiver and the patient are limited by what they’re able to grow on a small scale.
NETA, on the other hand, estimates it will be able to treat 4,000 patients at its Northampton location.
Arbelaez, NETA’s standards and practices consultant, said the organization takes its responsibility “very, very seriously.”
“We want to be a good neighbor,” he said during an interview in the lobby of the Fairfield Inn & Suites after Wednesday’s event. “Today was really a physical manifestation of our shared desire to do the right thing for the people of western Massachusetts.”
The get-together was more than just a meet-and-greet session. It was also part job fair as NETA goes about hiring about 25 new employees for its Conz Street dispensary and 125 statewide. The group also plans to open a dispensary in Brookline and operates its growing facility in Franklin.
“We got something on the order of 100 resumes today,” said Arbelaez, who relocated from Colorado where he owns two medical marijuana dispensaries and has been in the industry for the past six years.
He noted that every employee working in the state’s medical marijuana business must undergo a criminal background check and be registered and badged by the state Department of Public Health.
NETA plans to continue providing registration opportunities for qualified area residents who wish to procure medical marijuana products beginning next week at its Conz Street location. The dispensary will be open for registration purposes on Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 7 p.m. starting Aug. 20 and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Hundreds turn out for New England Treatment Access medical marijuana meet and greet
Author: Dan Crowley
Contact: Email The Author
Photo Credit: Harrison Hill - The Boston Globe
Website: News and Information from Northampton, MA by the Daily Hampshire Gazette | GazetteNet.com
Eager and curious, the steady crowd of patients, doctors and advocates who arrived at the Fairfield Inn & Suites dropped off job applications, registered as patients with the soon-to-open dispensary and learned more about the cannabis-based therapies the fledgling organization plans to offer.
“What surprised me was the anticipation,” Northon Arbelaez, a standards and practices consultant for NETA, said of the event’s atmosphere. “There are some people who have some very serious health issues.”
For 2½ hours, NETA employees were greeted by people from all walks of life, ranging in age from their 20s to 70s. Families even came, and many who attended said the opening of NETA’s Northampton dispensary is reason to cheer, as sick patients will now have easier access to medicine.
“They don’t need to go to the black market and they don’t need to go to their grandkids,” advanced practice nurse Michelle Kaskey said. “We’ve been waiting for a long time for dispensaries to open. I think it will be a good one.”
As a nurse, Kaskey is unable to offer the physician’s recommendation needed for a medical marijuana patient to purchase cannabis at one of the state licensed dispensaries, though she says she appreciates the medically legitimate uses of the flower.
“It’s something patients really need to back up, or supplement, or be the primary treatment for a wide variety of medical issues,” she said. “When medical marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts, it freed me up to speak openly about it with my patients.”
She offers “clinical assessments” of patients’ marijuana use, advising them whether they are using it in a therapeutically appropriate way. If a patient needs a physician’s referral for a medical card, she will often send them to Dr. Jill Griffin.
Though she was trained as an emergency room doctor, Griffin now operates a medical marijuana practice on Locust Street in Northampton. She said she’s celebrating the opening of the Conz Street dispensary.
“I’m so happy for my patients,” Griffin said. “Now the physicians are seeing they’re not taking opioids, Ambien, trazodone, Valium.”
Medical marijuana patient Vivienne, of Northampton, said she was “thrilled” to hear about the dispensary opening in Northampton.
At the gathering Wednesday, she got information about one of 25 job openings at the Northampton facility. She said she planned to apply for the assistant manager position due to her passion for the curative benefits of cannabis that she witnessed firsthand.
After being diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye, Vivienne said she was unsatisfied with the treatment options presented to her by her doctor.
The standard treatment for her kind of cancer involves surgery to cut open the affected eye, place radioactive pellets inside, sew it up and remain in isolation for five days due to the radioactivity, she said.
“When you decide you don’t want to rely on your doctor, you have to do a ton of research,” Vivienne said.
So she pursued alternative treatments, cannabis among them, on a 3½-year journey around the world that ended in October. That’s when she was treated by a less invasive method of radiation by a doctor in Boston.
But all those alternative therapies greatly helped to build her immune system, Vivienne said.
“I’ve never been healthier in my life,” she said.
Vivienne did not want her last name published due to the fact that she had to procure the highly concentrated cannabis oil through underground channels. The therapy she sought, “full extract cannabis oil,” is made by extracting 60 grams of oil from one pound of marijuana.
Cancer patients often are instructed to take 1 gram each day for 60 days.
Griffin noted the popularity of the highly concentrated extracts in cancer treatment and said that NETA will be unable to offer the product due to the sheer amount of plant material needed to create it.
With a shrunken tumor, Vivienne continues to use marijuana tincture as a preventive measure against cancer.
“It’s just a way of continuing to cleanse my body,” Vivienne said. “I’m certainly not going to do proactive chemo.”
Kaskey and Griffin say the dispensary brings benefits to patients because they’re able to try strains and products to determine what works best for them. That’s a barrier with today’s system, in which patients are treated by marijuana that they grow themselves or that is grown by another “caregiver.”
A caregiver may treat only one patient, and in either case the caregiver and the patient are limited by what they’re able to grow on a small scale.
NETA, on the other hand, estimates it will be able to treat 4,000 patients at its Northampton location.
Arbelaez, NETA’s standards and practices consultant, said the organization takes its responsibility “very, very seriously.”
“We want to be a good neighbor,” he said during an interview in the lobby of the Fairfield Inn & Suites after Wednesday’s event. “Today was really a physical manifestation of our shared desire to do the right thing for the people of western Massachusetts.”
The get-together was more than just a meet-and-greet session. It was also part job fair as NETA goes about hiring about 25 new employees for its Conz Street dispensary and 125 statewide. The group also plans to open a dispensary in Brookline and operates its growing facility in Franklin.
“We got something on the order of 100 resumes today,” said Arbelaez, who relocated from Colorado where he owns two medical marijuana dispensaries and has been in the industry for the past six years.
He noted that every employee working in the state’s medical marijuana business must undergo a criminal background check and be registered and badged by the state Department of Public Health.
NETA plans to continue providing registration opportunities for qualified area residents who wish to procure medical marijuana products beginning next week at its Conz Street location. The dispensary will be open for registration purposes on Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 7 p.m. starting Aug. 20 and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Hundreds turn out for New England Treatment Access medical marijuana meet and greet
Author: Dan Crowley
Contact: Email The Author
Photo Credit: Harrison Hill - The Boston Globe
Website: News and Information from Northampton, MA by the Daily Hampshire Gazette | GazetteNet.com
