Medical marijuana sales in Missouri top $200M, meeting expected projections

More than 160,000 Missourians have access to medical marijuana products, said Lyndall Fraker, director of the section on medical marijuana regulation in the Department of Health and Senior Services.

“We believe it will continue to grow,” Fraker said. “It will certainly hit 200,000 patients before July, which would be the three-year mark.

“We believe we have some really good operators in Missouri that are doing a really good job.”

Applications for patient medical marijuana cards have steadily grown during the first 2½ years, he pointed out.

More than 10,000 patients have applied for cards each of the past 10 months.

“As more facilities opened up and came online, it stimulated folks to go ahead and get their patient cards,” Fraker said. “I believe the number tailed back down a little bit.”

Supporters of the state program gathered enough signatures to get medical marijuana on the November ballot in 2018, when Missourians overwhelmingly passed it (by a 2-1 margin). Its passage made marijuana use legal for treatment of cancer; epilepsy; glaucoma; intractable migraines (persistent migraines that don’t respond to other treatments); chronic medical conditions that cause severe, persistent pain or persistent muscle spasms, including, but not limited to those associated with multiple sclerosis, seizures, Parkinson’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome; debilitating psychiatric disorders (when diagnosed by a state licensed psychiatrist), including but not limited to post-traumatic stress disorder; human immunodeficiency virus or acquired dependence (if a physician determines cannabis would be effective and safer); any terminal illness; or (in the professional judgment of a physician) any other chronic debilitating medical condition. [Read more at Fulton Sun]