BUTLER, PA. (WTAE, CNN) – The mother of a teenager who suffers from seizures is the first person to legally buy medical marijuana from a dispensary in Pennsylvania.
About a dozen people were waiting outside Cresco Yeltrah when the dispensary opened its doors on Pillow Street in Butler on Thursday morning.
Diana Briggs said the $178 purchase she made should easily be enough to treat her 17-year-old son for a month.
“We just wanted a quality of life for our son, and to now be able to give that to him, I can’t begin to tell you what that means as a parent,” she said.
“You can try to anticipate what those stories are like, but when you hear them and see them firsthand, it comes with tears. It comes with, ‘I’ve been waiting 30 years for this,’ or, ‘My child gets relief from this.’ It’s indescribable. Incredibly rewarding,” Cresco Yeltrah co-founder Charlie Bachtell said.
Briggs said medical marijuana has reduced her son’s seizures from 400 to 50 a day. With a Safe Harbor Letter, she had been able to get the drug out of state and transport it to Pennsylvania.
“We walked those halls in the Capitol. I took my son and put him in front of these people so that they could see what we see every day,” she said.
Only patients and caregivers are allowed inside medical marijuana dispensaries. A state-issued card is required for entry.
Over 4,000 patients in Pennsylvania have been certified by a doctor. The program is open to people with qualifying conditions including AIDS, autism, cancer, epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and Crohn’s disease.
State law allows dispensaries to sell oils, extracts, tinctures and concentrates. The drug will not be available in edible or smokable form.
“But they don’t allow for dry flower, so that’s a big void in our program that I’m hoping we can change,” said Dr. Sue Sisley, a member of Cresco Yeltrah’s advisory board. “We’re actually going to Harrisburg to try to persuade our Department of Health that this is an important option that patients need.”
WTAE contributed to this report. Content courtesy CNN Newsource.
