QUESTION:        Our state passed a medical marijuana bill, and it’s now ready to be fully implemented.  Should our hospital allow inpatients to use their own therapeutic cannabis?

ANSWER:            As of now, 25 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for medical use.  And it would not be surprising if more come on-line.

The first place to start is whether the state law in any way requires a hospital to allow for an inpatient’s individual usage.  That’s highly unlikely, which is why this becomes an area for the development of a hospital policy.

Guidance certainly comes from a likely already existing policy concerning the use by patients of their own medications brought while an inpatient.  Even with that, though, we’ve been asked whether therapeutic marijuana should be treated in a different way than “regular” medications.

In the long run, the answer is no.  Certainly, the medicine brings its own notoriety, cultural and political issues, but the answer is that it is best to review medical marijuana along already established and regular ways.

But because of that notoriety, medical marijuana raises other issues that may or may not be addressed in a traditional “patient’s own prescription usage” policy.  Or if they are, those issues may need to be reviewed again in the context of whether there should be any other answers where therapeutic cannabis is involved.  If the hospital chooses not to allow medical cannabis use in the hospital, how should the patient’s cannabis be handled?  Could the patient keep it in her room?  Should it be locked in the hospital’s patient possessions safe?  Must a family member or friend come as soon as possible to get it out of the hospital and off the hospital’s campus?

From our experience, hospitals have largely taken a “no own inpatient use” approach.  And it is best to make this clear in a hospital policy or rule, because it’s likely if you’re in one of those 25 states, a patient will ask.