{"id":548,"date":"2019-06-29T13:58:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T13:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=548"},"modified":"2019-06-29T13:58:52","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T13:58:52","slug":"some-watson-clinic-doctors-now-recommending-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/29\/some-watson-clinic-doctors-now-recommending-cannabis\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Watson Clinic doctors now recommending cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In another sign that medical marijuana has reached\nmainstream acceptance, some doctors at Polk County\u2019s largest medical clinic are\nnow recommending the drug for patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two doctors at Watson Clinic specializing in family medicine\nhave completed the state training required to recommend medical marijuana. A\nstatement from a Watson Clinic spokeswoman suggested that more doctors will\nsoon do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnder the new Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative, a\nselect number of our physicians will be certified to order low-TCH cannabis or\nmedical marijuana,\u201d spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said by email. \u201cEligible\npatients must be currently established with Watson Clinic and can be referred\nby their Watson Clinic provider.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2016\nthat allows doctors to recommend cannabis-based products to treat symptoms of a\nrange of conditions, including cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS,\npost-traumatic stress disorder, ALS (Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease), Crohn\u2019s disease,\nParkinson\u2019s disease and multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The products can also be recommended to treat chronic pain\nand terminal illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida law allows the use of medications derived from\nplants with varying levels of both CBD and THC, the two main compounds found to\nhave medical benefits. THC is the compound that can produce a euphoric effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A doctor must complete a state educational program before\nbeing able to recommend medical marijuana. Patients must apply for and receive\na state-issued identification card, and the products are available only at\nstate-licensed dispensaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County has three such outlets, two in Lakeland and one\nin Winter Haven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some local doctors began issuing recommendations for\nmedical marijuana soon after the law took effect in 2017, doctors at Watson\nClinic only recently began doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker said some of the clinic\u2019s primary-care doctors are\nable to prescribe cannabis products. The Florida Department of Health\u2019s list of\nqualified doctors includes Dr. Rony Alvarado and Dr. Jason Saylor of Watson\nClinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctors will recommend medical marijuana only for\nestablished patients or those who are established with another Watson Clinic\nprovider and receive a referral, Baker said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In another sign that medical marijuana has reached mainstream acceptance, some doctors at Polk County\u2019s largest medical clinic are now recommending the drug for patients. Two doctors at Watson Clinic… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}