COLUMBIA COUNTY – They call him the “cannabis doctor” for his treatment of serious ailments such as cancer, AIDS, chronic pain and inflammatory bowel disease with medical marijuana.
But the costs can be out of reach for many patients. That is why Dr. Kenneth Weinberg of Cannabis Doctors of New York, a group based in Columbia County and Manhattan, is supporting legalization of recreational marijuana.
Weinberg urged the state legislature to consider allowing law abiding New Yorkers the ability to access recreational marijuana.
“In most of the other states that have medical cannabis, which is generally pretty expensive, it has lowered the cost, and that has been a big problem for a lot of the patients I have. They cannot afford to buy the medical cannabis that I am prescribing to them and my understanding from what I have seen is that where it has become recreational as well has really helped lower the cost and made it much more available to the patients.”
Weinberg said marijuana “can be a powerful and important tool in a healthy lifestyle and is a vastly better alternative to the drug scourges eating away at our society.”
He said research is proving that cannabis “is an effective tool in safely treating ailments that are now being treated with opioids and in fact, it is being shown to help wean patients off narcotics.”
