Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Cannabis program having trouble keeping up

Local medical cannabis dispensaries are in demand throughout New Mexico ... but supply cannot keep up.

Since Jan. 1, more than 8,000 New Mexicans have gained their medical cannabis cards, records show.

Enrollment in the New Mexico Medical Cannabis Program has increased by 84 percent since March of last year.

And cannabis sales have risen 91 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the first quarter of last year.

But with producers limited to 450 plants per year, they cannot meet requests for more than 10 times that amount.

"There's little hope for the people in this state with dire diagnosis because of our restrictions," said Ultra Health District Manager Kyle Salberg, whose company owns one of two medical marijuana dispensaries in Clovis.

His company's customer base needs an average of five or six plants annually, he said. But state restrictions mean customers receive less than one half of a plant per year.

Mario Gonzales, president of the Budding Hope dispensary in Clovis, said when his store opened in 2010, he knew every customer, and those customers came from all over the state.

"Now I see new faces every day," he said. "When we opened there were 4,000 card holders and now there's 40,000. It makes for a very different market place," Gonzales said.

Gonzales said in the final quarter of 2016, his company served 300 different customers between locations in Clovis and Hobbs. By the end of the first quarter of 2017, that number had jumped to 550.

Salberg said Ultra Health has generated over $376,000 in sales in the last three months - a fraction of customer needs.

"There is a huge supply and demand issue in New Mexico," Salberg said. "We have the ability to take care of this issue but we just are not allowed to."

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In New Mexico, patients diagnosed with epilepsy, chronic pain, post traumatic stress disorder, glaucoma and HIV are among those who can qualify for cannabis cards.

Salberg said his company's clients are as young as 6 months, but 75 percent of the customer base is 50 and over.

Gonzales said the state has done a good job ensuring "the right people are getting cards."

"I don't see much abuse of the system," Gonzales said. "You don't see anybody where you're like, 'Why do they have a card?'"

Gonzales said the best part of medical cannabis is it can prevent patients from becoming addicted to far more dangerous pain relievers.

"People go through life and are faced with health issues or their loved ones and they see the damage that opioids can do. (Medical cannabis) gives them the option to convert to something more natural," Gonzales said.

Dispensary operators contend they generally lower the crime rate and affect the addiction rate of dangerous drugs.

"You see it all the time where people, good members of society, have a knee surgery and get addicted to pills. Then their script runs out and they turn to the streets; medical cannabis can prevent that," said Ultra Health Assistant Manager Lane Stevens.

But Clovis Police Department Capt. Roman Romero disagrees on the affects of dispensaries in Clovis.

"Marijuana and opioids are two different types of drugs," Romero said. "Especially from what I have seen with the injectable type of people I know, there seems to be a hang-up with the needle itself."

Romero said there is no evidence medical marijuana dispensaries have helped provide a lower crime rate or that the legalization of the drug for recreational use will positively affect the crime rate.

"I'm glad to hear they see that, but we have not seen that, not to my knowledge and not based on arrests," Romero said.

 
 
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