Not All Medical Marijuana Authorizations Are Created Equal

​Patients who are new to the world of medical marijuana often assume that all medicinal cannabis authorizations - the signed, tamper-proof forms that prove, for legal purposes, you are a real patient to whom marijuana has been recommended by a medical professional empowered to do so -- are created equally. Such is not the case.

While there are several less important distinctions between "MMJ" (as they're called in the business) authorizations - for instance, discounted ones are available which are only good for six months - the most important thing about your medical marijuana recommendation is how easily it is verified.

As any reputable collective will insist on verifying your authorization before allowing you to donate and procure cannabis, it is critical to understand the verification process in place at the clinic you choose.

Sad to say, some authorization clinics don't have much of a plan when it comes to verifying during off-hours; if the clinic or doctor's office is closed when the collective calls to verify your MMJ patient status, they get an answering machine message.

Very few of them - I should say almost none of them, especially the good collectives - are going to allow you anywhere near their bud room until your authorization has been verified.

​What this means, in the real world, is that if you have a cut-rate authorization from an outfit which does not offer 24/7 verification services, you have a much less convenient authorization.

With such an authorization - especially if you, like me, do most of your cannabis shopping on weekends - you are going to be very disappointed when visiting most collectives. Yes, this is the voice of experience here.

After having been turned down at a few places during my first few months of visiting shops for "Toke Signals," this usability difference between authorizations became frustratingly obvious to me.

There are, fortunately, a couple of work-arounds, even if you have an authorization that doesn't have 24/7 verification. One of these, which you should definitely do if you plan to visit a collective on the weekend, is to fax your tamper-proof authorization form to the shop a couple days before you plan to visit. This will give them the opportunity to verify it on a weekday, when your health professional or his/her staff will actually be there to answer the phone.

Another strategy, equally effective but less convenient, is to stop by the shop a few days before (or the weekend before) you plan to actually get medicine; let them copy your paperwork and verify your authorization before you come back, and then everything will be in place.

So, how can you be sure if any given medical marijuana authorization clinic provides 24/7 verification services? Ask them. Don't accept promises that "We'll soon have that in place," or "We're working on it right now;" ask them if they have it today.

Having had both kinds of authorizations - those with (near-)instant verification and those without - I can tell you it's a whole different experience being able to visit any collective, on the spur of the moment, by just walking in and getting verified.

Steve Elliott edits Toke of the Town, Village Voice Media's site of cannabis news, views, rumor, and humor.