Marijuana Politics reported the following interview with,Linn Baumgardt Director of Strategic Initiatives on 11 April..
Anthony Johnson: What is your position and duties with Leafly?
Linn Baumgardt: I’m the Director of Strategic Initiatives. I’m responsible for the expansion of Leafly into Germany, a burgeoning medical cannabis country that is helping the global movement to legalize medical cannabis in Europe, and around the world.
What are Leafly’s plans for the Germany expansion?
Leafly.com is available in every country. However, we will be launching Leafly.de in May 2017. Leafly.de will look and function differently from the US website, as there are currently no dispensaries in Germany.
Medical cannabis is a new topic to many Germans, and Leafly.de will serve as a competent and trustworthy informational resource for German speaking patients, doctors, pharmacists, and adults who are interested in learning more about the topic.
Germany’s plan is to start having medical cannabis covered by health insurance, do you think that this would be a good approach for other countries?
It will be interesting to see how this will be implemented by doctors and health insurers. Germany’s health insurers may cover medical cannabis prescriptions for the “seriously ill” as stated in the new law. Rather than creating a new legal category for cannabis (the way US states and Canada are doing it,) Germany is modifying their narcotics prescription medication law to include cannabis. If other countries go down the same path as Germany, it would make sense for them to look at what is working in the German system and adapt similar practices accordingly.
Have you heard good feedback from patients and customers about Leafly’s services?
One of the reasons we are launching Leafly.de is that we are hearing of an overwhelming need for information from German patients, medical practitioners, media, and regulators. While there are activist groups in Germany that have been very passionate and vocal about the topic for a long time, for mainstream Germans this is new territory. We are very excited to launch Leafly.de and get feedback on what our site visitors like and what they would like us to add on and develop.
