As of November 2024, just over 2,700 patients were enrolled in the program, down from a high of almost 5,500 medical-card holders in 2017, according to data from Vermont’s Cannabis Control Board. And as patients have opted to simply buy cannabis products at the now-ubiquitous recreational retailers, all but two of the state’s standalone medical dispensaries have shuttered their doors.
“The business model just doesn’t work anymore,” James Pepper, chair of Vermont’s Cannabis Control Board, told members of the House Committee on Human Services Wednesday.
To bolster the declining program, Vermont lawmakers have moved to integrate medical and recreational cannabis sales. Last year, the legislature passed Act 166, a law that, among other measures, introduced a new medical-use endorsement for cannabis retailers. The Cannabis Control Board could begin issuing it to select dispensaries as soon as this July.
Cannabis retailers with the endorsement will be able to essentially operate as medical dispensaries. That means they can sell medical-grade weed products to select patients enrolled in the state’s medical program tax-free, provide curbside pickup and increase quantity limits for sales to patients, among other things.
But regulators are still ironing out the details on how to roll out the new endorsement.
A large and lingering question is how to properly train and educate budtenders — the cannabis salespeople at dispensaries — to make sure that patients who often suffer from severe health conditions are finding products that are right for them.
To that end, regulators are considering introducing an app called Cannify to mediate interactions between medical patients and budtenders. Using a comprehensive questionnaire, the program would help steer patients toward proper treatment options.
“We feel like this might be a useful tool in the tool box to make sure that our budtenders, who are economically motivated, are not kind of making recommendations about products to people who have very serious health conditions,” Pepper told lawmakers Wednesday.
Regulators are also recommending that lawmakers move to modify the process for evaluating and approving medical conditions that would qualify patients for medical marijuana usage to help expand access to the program.
Currently, the legislature has sole authority to dictate what diagnoses would qualify patients, a process the Cannabis Control Board has recommended shifting to an independent regulatory authority of some kind.
“At what point are we going to turn that over to a regulatory process?” Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, said Wednesday. “Are we at that point with cannabis for medical relief? I think it’s a question that we should be talking about.”