The collection of a mail-order pharmacy shows that bureaucracy and gaps in knowledge slow down the willingness to prescribe cannabis therapy.
Therapy with medical cannabis is not particularly highly regarded by doctors in Frankfurt seven years after legalization. At least if you look at the results of an examination of the shipping pharmacy mycare.de. Out of 20 practices that were requested in Frankfurt, eleven of them explicitly rejected treatment with cannabis. Only one practice was willing to offer the therapy. The remaining practices did not come back.
Although the number of rejections is the maximum in the entire survey, the overall picture is rather negative nationwide: out of 400 general practitioners surveyed, only 23 signaled that they would offer cannabis therapy or appropriate advice.
A fictitious case was stated in the cannabis treatment request, according to the mail order pharmacy. One always asked as a 29-year-old patient who had been suffering from sleep disorders for years and was looking for alternative treatment methods in the practices. The doctors were also informed that the woman had been treated by several experts in the past ten years and had been prescribed various medications. There was a specific question as to whether the doctors would be willing to recommend cannabis therapy or at least offer advice.
In many cases, the treatment of sleep disorders was excluded even with the 23 positive results due to the applicable indication criteria, the communication said. It was pointed out that cannabis therapy is currently mainly suitable for chronic pain and serious neurological diseases. The mail-order pharmacy contradicts this: „Medical cannabis can also be prescribed for sleep disorders. “
Martin Schulze, pharmacist and head of pharmaceutical customer care at mycare.de, speculates that the inconsistent study situation could be a major reason for the rejection. „While certain indications such as chronic pain, spasticity in multiple sclerosis, therapy-resistant epilepsy or nausea due to chemotherapy have solid scientific evidence for treatment with medical cannabis, other areas of application, such as anxiety or sleep disorders, still lack clear research results “, says Schulze.
The pharmacist also notes that despite legalization, the prescription of cannabis flowers is heavily regulated and involves considerable documentation. Health insurance companies also still have the option of requesting a reason for cannabis therapy from doctors and can refuse treatment.
