Area residents will now have access to medicinal cannabis through a major retailer.
Shoppers Drug Mart has announced the expansion of its online sales across the country, in an effort to break down barriers for patients requiring cannabis for things like pain management.
Unlike recreational cannabis, medical cannabis still has to be authorized by a family physician.
But Mike Boivin, a pharmacist consultant with Shoppers, says many of us don’t have access to a family doctor or have one that is opposed to prescribing cannabis.
He says Cannabis by Shoppers has partnered with HelloMD to help bridge the gap.
“If they don’t have a physician, or they just want to see if they’re the right candidate for it, there’s a physician there where they can go and connect to a computer and they can have a 30-minute consultation to see if cannabis is right for them.”
According to Statistics Canada, more than 800,000 people are “self-medicating” by using recreational or illegal cannabis without the guidance of a healthcare professional.
Boivin says the high rate of self-medicating is concerning.
“I am under the firm belief that cannabis is not for everybody. I really think that if someone is going to think about using it for health conditions, that they need to get access to a health care professional”
The company is partnering with 12 licensed producers to fill prescriptions.
The prescriptions will all be filled through a mail-order basis and sent directly and discreetly to your doorstep.
He hopes increasing access will allow people to make the right choices when it comes to cannabis use.
Boivin says “We know about 1.1 million Canadians use cannabis. What we’re trying to do is I firmly believe that these patients need a health care professional to provide them with some guidance in terms of what they should take, how they should take it, what are the potential risks, and is there any potential drug interaction.
He adds he’s seen a decrease in stigma around medical cannabis use.
“I never thought that five years ago when I started in this space that I’d be in a nursing home talking to seniors about using cannabis for chronic pain and for other conditions.”
Boivin says “so we’re seeing more and more people that are using it, and as more people talk about it, and talk about it from a medical perspective. I think that the stigma is slowly going to go away.”
