After the recent addition of seven new eligible medical conditions for enrollment in the Medical Cannabis Program. There HAS to be an increased number of patients that need medicine. There's likely more than a couple reasons as to why there hasn't been a major increase in the number of MMJ cardholders.

1.) People aren't aware they qualify
2.) They don't know which/ if any doctor's can recommend MMJ for them.
3.) Growing MMJ takes significant time, money, resources, knowledge, and expertise, many of which these eligible qualified patients don't have.
4.) Fear of being put on a "list"

The state health department has set up parameters and application requirements and all this can be found on this link here.

Medical Marijuana Information

My father has one of the 14 qualifying conditions for MMJ but is very reluctant to get his card because as was mentioned before because of the associated stigma. I implored him to allow me to be his caregiver; as I believe he could benefit greatly from MMJ to help alleviate some of his symptoms. He replied, "Well I could just find something on the street or around somewhere and just use that." I was flabbergasted. This is exactly what the erin and lynn compassionate use act was meant to avoid. Buying drugs off the street. I had to sit down with him and explain for quite some time that something you would get off the street is of unknown, often low quality and can potentially have very dangerous things added to it, such as illicit drugs, pesticides, etc. I let him know any MMJ he would get from a dispensary or caregiver would be of a very high potency and 100% organic from the earth, providing a better relief of his symptoms. It wouldn't need to be bought and would be available whenever he needed.

On that site the NM board of health has a link to dispensary application. There are a lot of rules and regulations they have in order to pretty much allow only an established NPO with moderately deep pockets in order to set up and maintain. Security, Board of advisors, location, training, etc. I'd be willing to lend my time and resources to anyone interested in starting and maintaining an NPO. First step would be to find three cardholders and a doctor or nurse practitioner willing to sit on on board once a month. (minimum board requirements)