New Connecticut Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opening This Week

The Southern CT Wellness & Healing dispensary is expected to open its doors as early as this week. The facility resembles a meditation/yoga space with a drug store-like setting. The dispensary will be the first for the City of Milford. Two total dispensaries are planned for the city.

The second dispensary that will be opening is Arrow Alternative Care No. 2, the CT Post reports. Arrow Alternative Care is expected to open within the next two months and will be located at 255 W. River St. in Milford. Milford patients currently travel outside of Fairfield County for their medicine, with many visiting the city of Bethel. Compassionate Care Center in Bethel has been open for about a year and a half and reports to have patients visiting the dispensary that are in their 90s.

What is different about the Connecticut medical marijuana program is that patients schedule times to visit the dispensaries, just as they would to see a doctor. The patients must also have a valid prescription that will be viewed and approved by the dispensary pharmacist.

Southern CT Wellness & Healing co-owner Raj Patel said, “You have to verify that you are a participant with the Connecticut medical marijuana program before you’re even buzzed in the door. There’s more than one level of security.”

The other Southern CT Wellness & Healing co-owner Tejal Desai said, “We’re looking at several other lines of treatment, too – yoga, meditation, acupuncture – that can benefit the whole patient. This will be like an old-fashioned pharmacy in a sense. We’ll get to know the patients and find ways in which they can be helped.”

Pharmacists working at medical marijuana dispensaries determine the best dosage and best types of medical marijuana products for each patient. Determining the proper dosage for each patient is a process and requires time, trial and error.

Given the growing evidence on the health benefits of marijuana, Dr. Victoria Richards said, “There’s a growing body of evidence that it’s useful in cases of pain management, seizures and a host of other conditions. Also, nausea, vomiting and to improve appetite.”

Speaking on the security of the program, Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan Harris said, “Our program is one of the most secure programs in the country, and the first program developed using a pharmaceutical model. Doctors and other health care professionals now have the option to provide this effective medication to their patients who are less and less being stigmatized and more and more being recognized for what they are, our family members, friends and neighbors who need and deserve to live a healthy life.”