Patients in Delaware are still struggling to gain access to medical marijuana in the state, with many paying high prices and being forced to travel hundreds of miles, according to a News Journal report. The lack of access is partly due to there being only one licensed dispensary in the entire state.
Todd Boone, a medical card holder, has sued the state to open dispensaries in Kent and Sussex counties, which are closer to his Milton home. Boone drives 190 miles round trip to the Wilmington dispensary to obtain the medicine he needs to combat the chronic pain he’s had since a 2008 motorcycle. He says he pays about $360 for an ounce of flower at the dispensary.
“There are thousands of people that need this as medicine, and there is too much greed and back-door politics going on here,” Boone said in the report.
Officials in Delaware planned on opening dispensaries in every county but so far the pilot dispensary in Wilmington — opened last year — is the only one operating the state. According to the report, state regulators are finalizing contract negotiations that would open two more in Sussex and Kent counties by 2017. The Delaware Medical Marijuana Act provided that all three counties must have a Compassion Center by Jan. 1, 2013.
Paul Hyland, the director of the state’s program, indicated that the officials are making progress, although they keep negotiations private, but that “these things take time.”
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