CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — There are 17 serious medical conditions approved for the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Program, according to Beth Bittner, director of communication and outreach, for Cresco Yeltrah’s 46,000 sq. ft. marijuana grow facility in Brookville.
Bittner offered an overview of the program at Monday’s meeting of the Clarion Rotary Club.
(Photo: Bittner and Clarion Rotary President Jamie Lefever.)
“The first step is to get a medical marijuana card which would be for you to have documentation from your physician diagnosing you with one of 17 medical conditions outlined in the Pennsylvania law,” said Bittner.
“Next, you will go to an approved marijuana doctor. The last I heard there were 300 doctors approved and registered in Pennsylvania to recommend medical marijuana. They will talk with you and register your information. They do not do the recommendation. It will be the pharmacist in the dispensary that makes the recommendation of what strain and ratio that you will use. The doctor is only writing that I think that medical marijuana will be beneficial to you. That’s all of the liability the doctor has. In the meantime, you get on the Pa. Dept. of health website and register on there, and it is $50.00 for your card, and it needs to be renewed every year.”
Cresco Yeltrah has a dispensary in Butler. Bittner described the Butler dispensary as very clean and sterile, similar to an Apple store.
“You’re going to need that card to get into the dispensary,” said Bittner. “You will need your ID and the statement from your doctor. You will have a sit-down consultation with the pharmacist, and they will walk you through what they feel is the best form for you as well as strength and the ratio.”
The 17 medical conditions approved for the medical marijuana program include:
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
• Autism
• Cancer
• Crohn’s Disease
• Damage to Nervous Tissue of Spinal Cord
• Epilepsy
• Glaucoma
• HIV
• Huntington’s Disease
• IBS
• Intractable Seizures
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Neuropathies
• Parkinson’s Disease
• PTSD
• Severe chronic or intractable pain
• Sickle Cell Anemia
“This is really more of a compliance industry than it is a cannabis industry. The security, the regulations, everything we do and everything we put out there has to be approved by the state beforehand.”
The Brookville facility is a grow facility, meaning that the marijuana is grown there and then made into various approved forms of consumption. At no time do the plants themselves leave the building.
Approved forms of consumption or medicine include Capsules, Extracts, Oils, Medically Appropriate forms of Vaporization or Mobilization, Tinctures, Liquids, Topicals, Gels, Creams, Ointments, and Lotions.
Flowers and edibles are not legal.
Cresco Yeltrah, a partnership between the Hartley Family of Pennsylvania and Cresco Labs, is one of the nation’s leading medical cannabis companies. The company will donate one percent of its profit each year to the community.
Bittner did not have an estimate of the profit. The company is also now employing approximately 20 people, but that could increase.
