Nearly 50% Of German Patients Live Over 10 Kilometers From A Cannabis Pharmacy
As is the case with any country that has adopted a modernized medical cannabis program, Germany’s patient base is spread out across the country, with some regions of Germany having a larger concentration of patients than others. Meanwhile, medical cannabis safe access points are also spread across Germany in a non-uniform manner.
For able-bodied patients who live near a German pharmacy that dispenses medical cannabis, acquiring their medicine is presumably not too big a burden. However, for patients who live far away from a cannabis pharmacy and/or are not able-bodied, telemedicine and delivery services are vital.
Unfortunately, Germany’s Health Minister Nina Warken is currently pushing to abolish both medical cannabis telemedicine and delivery services in the European country. Minister Warken recently released a draft amendment that, as introduced, would:
- Mandate in-person doctor consultations
- Ban mail-order medical cannabis dispensing
- Impose stricter rules for medical cannabis prescriptions
For the first time, data has been compiled and published that quantifies which regions and medical cannabis patients would be hit the hardest if the harmful amendment and its provisions were to be adopted.
“Bloomwell Group released a map outlining the number of medical cannabis patients in Germany in relation to the country’s population, along with which regions have the most, and least, patients. The results suggest that online delivery of medical cannabis is heavily relied upon by German patients who do not have local access to brick-and-mortar pharmacies that can supply cannabis treatment.” stated Bloomwell in a press release obtained by the International Cannabis Business Conference.
According to the company’s data analysis, “there are significantly more medical cannabis patients in relation to the population in the South of the country than in the North,” and “almost half of the cannabis patients in Germany do not have access to a brick-and-mortar pharmacy specializing in cannabis treatment within a 10-kilometer radius.”
German medical cannabis telemedicine services help the nation’s most vulnerable patients, including rural patients who live far away from doctors, disabled patients who often cannot travel to complete in-person consultations, and low income patients who may be able-bodied and yet cannot afford to travel to a physical doctors office or pay extra for a doctor to travel to them for in-person consultations. It is paramount for these types of German medical cannabis patients that telemedicine and delivery services be maintained and not banned.
“If half of cannabis patients cannot legally obtain their medication from a pharmacy within a 10-kilometer radius, what alternative remains for these medical patients besides turning to the illicit market? We are only at the very beginning of the legislative process, and given the severe potential consequences of the current draft for limiting the pharmaceutical care access of hundreds of thousands of chronically ill patients, I predict that this amendment will not be passed in its current form. Fortunately, the SPD parliamentary group has already emphasized that without solid evaluation results, they will not jeopardize patient safety through such drastic measures.” states Niklas Kouparanis, Co-Founder and CEO of Bloomwell Group.
Leading international cannabis economist Beau Whitney, founder of Whitney Economics, estimates that Germany is home to between 700k and 900k medical cannabis patients.