Medical marijuana and CBD sales rise sharply during COVID-19 pandemic

Florida is seeing a surge in sales of medical marijuana and CBD hemp products as more people turn to them to treat their anxiety, insomnia and pain during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Voters in 2016 approved the state’s new medical marijuana industry, and sales have been rising ever since. With patients limiting their trips out of their homes, some have been buying more each time they go to dispensaries.

With the rise in demand, wait times at dispensaries in some instances rose from what used to take only 10 to 15 minutes — even without an appointment — to backlogs of dozens of patients at any given time, potentially lasting hours.

Sales have risen significantly when compared with last year.

From Sept. 11 to Sept. 17, dispensaries sold about 134 million milligrams of medical marijuana statewide, a 47% increase since mid-March. Over the same six-month period last year, the state saw about a 13.1% increase.

Cannabidiol, often called CBD, saw a more dramatic increase. CBD is non-psychoactive, meaning it does not result in the same euphoric effects as marijuana. It’s marketed as a way to treat anxiety and depression. From mid-March to mid-September last year, CBD sales in Florida had decreased about 8.7% but over the same period this year, sales have shot up by about 59%.

Coping with pandemic

People have sought remedies as they have wrangled with stress and depression. Mental health experts and police and fire officials have seen spikes in mental-health emergencies as a result of people becoming unemployed and unable to pay bills, or feeling isolated from quarantining.

Scott Sutter, a professional musician from Deerfield Beach, said he lost all of his gigs because of the pandemic, making him lose money but also miss out on connecting with people from the stage. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, am I going to make it through this?’” he said.

He said he used medical marijuana to treat glaucoma and a heart condition for years, but said it’s also been effective for stress and anxiety. Sutter, 55, said he has kept busy with various hobbies, but figures without marijuana, staying content would be much harder. "At least with cannabis, every little thing I do, I can make it into a little adventure and it’s not mundane.”

Scheril Murray Powell is a 45-year-old North Lauderdale attorney who said she turned to medical marijuana and CBD to treat her anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. She said it has been a turbulent time, citing the killing of George Floyd, which this year renewed attention on the issue of police brutality, leading to protests across the country during the pandemic.

“With taking medical cannabis, it relieves some of the anxiety with watching the news,” she said. She thinks of her son, “who is a Black boy in the United States, and it helps me stay motivated to fight for his world to be different than mine,” she said. "So he won’t have to deal with the same type of anxiety.”

Staying open

There were business shutdowns across Florida, but patients always had somewhere to go to buy marijuana and other related products.

The state labeled dispensaries as essential businesses, allowing them to stay open during the shutdowns. In turn, dispensaries took steps to comply with health and safety guidelines such as limiting the number of people in buildings for social distancing and expanding delivery and curbside pickup options.

“Being able to provide patients access to their medicine in a safe environment was really important and a key priority for the company,” said Yesenia Garcia, Florida marketing director for Curaleaf, a medical marijuana dispensary chain.

Curaleaf designated the first hour of the day as being only available for older or immunocompromised patients. The company has always offered delivery and once the pandemic took hold, the company removed its minimum order threshold for free delivery and began offering curbside pickup, Garcia said.

Trulieve, another dispensary chain with locations in Florida, also reserves the first hour of business for patients with compromised immune systems, and decided in March to reduce its delivery fee, remove the minimum order threshold and offer free delivery for elderly patients.

Seeing more patients

Clinics also are reporting a record high number of appointments as patients go for doctor consultations and referrals to get approved for their medical marijuana cards.

Don Faiz, owner of High Life Medical Center in Hollywood, said he has seen about a 30% increase in people coming in for consultations to cope with stress and anxiety and the uncertainty the pandemic has brought.

“Everyone has been home a lot — so anxiety, depression, not having a job and not having a social life is really messing with people,” he said.

———

©2020 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.