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In episode 8, we have our first Medical Marijuana patient and home cultivator on the podcast. Huge thank you to Hunter for being our first South Dakota Medical Marijuana Cardholder to be on the show!
Hunter takes us through his journey to get certified, the requirements he had to meet in order to home cultivate, and offers some tips that could improve the home cultivation program.
A mix of both physical clinic locations and Outreach Clinics is necessary for patients with chronic conditions to get certified. If the state wants to eliminate Outreach Clinics, they need to replace them with a telehealth option. Asking people with chronic conditions to drive several hours to get certified for their medical card is unconscionable. Especially when you take into account that the average age of cardholders is about 50 – 52 years old.
Not offering telehealth also creates a significant amount of confusion for anyone trying to find out how or where to get certified. Why? Because the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s (FSST) Medical Marijuana Program DOES offer telehealth. The majority of South Dakotans still do not understand that the South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s (FSST) Medical Marijuana Programs are completely separate.
You can use telehealth to get your FSST Card, you can NOT use telehealth to get your South Dakota Card.
Advice to anyone wanting a South Dakota State Card and an FSST Card – Get your South Dakota Card first then get your FSST Card. FSST allows you to use your South Dakota State Card in lieu of an additional telehealth visit with a physician to get your FSST Card.
South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program
FSST Medical Marijuana Program
South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program – Find a Clinic or Certiying Practitioner Near You
South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program – Find an Outreach Near You
South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program – How to Get Certified for Your Medical Card
Currently, the South Dakota Medical Marijuana Program allows 2 Flowering and 2 Non-Flower Plants. As a home cultivator, Hunter would like to see an increase in the limit of Non-Flowering plants. This is due to the fact that you do not know if your seeds are going to produce a male or female plant – for those who do not know, male plants do not produce THC and can therefore not be smoked or used for any medicinal benefit. By limiting the number of non-flowering plants, there is a high likelihood that at least one plant will be male and not produce THC. That plant will then need to be destroyed and the grower will need to begin the process over, resulting in the home grower only having one flowering plant.
Testing requirements vary from state to state and in a new market where state regulators are not fully educated on the best procedures, it can cause confusion on the part of the patient. Just because two strains have the same THC percentage, does NOT mean their effects are going to be the same. It all comes down to the way the terpenes and cannabinoids in that strain interact with one another, commonly called the “Entourage Effect.”
South Dakota testing requirements focus solely on THC percentage which, in a Medical Market, is not the best way to determine which strain will benefit the patient the most. Terpenes are the therapeutic and medically beneficial parts of Cannabis, not the THC percentage. So it would stand to reason that in a Medical Market, Terpene testing should be part of the required testing for all Cannabis products. NOT as an “add on” test that comes with an additional cost to the Cultivators.
Currently, if you purchase any Cannabis product from a dispensary, the package will have the following…
One Response
Thank you Hunter for talking about home growers. I hope that it will encourage more people to start growing their own herbal medicine.
Thanks Coughy House, keep up the good work!