I was sitting in on a hearing for disability last week when it finally happened. The claimant, who was applying on the grounds of mental impairment for disability, had positive toxicology for cannabinoids. Ordinarily, such a finding present in the medical record over an extended period of time would result in the claimant not being awarded benefits. The medical expert would argue simply that the ongoing use of marijuana was material to the claimant’s mental state. And that’s what happened on this particular day, right up to the point that the claimant pulled out a Rhode Island Medical Marijuana card.

Or maybe he didn’t. He pulled out a card with his picture, an official looking seal, an expiration date and an ID number. He indicated that his doctor had signed a statement saying that he was qualified to obtain medical marijuana. Was the ID card real? One way of checking would be to look online to see what the cards are supposed to look like, but the appearance of the Rhode Island medical marijuana ID card is not publicized online. Another would be to look in the medical record to determine where the physician documented his patient’s medical need to smoke an addictive plant. We looked, but didn’t find any documentation of either the underlying medical condition or the physician’s thought process regarding marijuana use. In fact, there was nothing in the medical record about marijuana, other than the positive toxicology. The claimant explained that the doctor had told him he wouldn’t write anything in the chart about marijuana because of the liability issues. I wonder if that’s why the ID card doesn’t indicate what doctor recommended the issuance of the card in the first place. Perhaps the real ID cards do, in fact, indicate a doctor’s name.

In Rhode Island, the application fee to receive a medical marijuana registry ID card is $75. For those on Medicaid, SSDI or SSI, the fee is reduced to $10. That’s good. I wouldn’t want my 65 extra tax dollars being used as a barrier to prevent the individual from spending hundreds more of my tax dollars on their addiction. Interestingly, once an individual has one of these cards, he is eligible to possess 2.5 ounces of marijuana, which is the equivalent of about 70 grams. A joint might contain anywhere from ½ to 1 gram of marijuana. These individuals are therefore able to possess a significant supply of marijuana; once they have used up the 2.5 ounces, they can buy more. There is no limitation within a specific time period so if an individual uses up his 2.5 ounces in a week, he can return to the dealer for another 2.5 ounces. The more he uses, the more frequently he can return to the dealer for, under the law, an infinite supply of marijuana.